ZX SPECTRUM - IT LIVES!!! now has a new home: https://zxspectrumitlives.wixsite.com/home
PART FOUR
T-WRECKS ON THE RAMPAGE!!!
FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!
NEWS HEADLINES!
OLD VS. NEW - WHO WILL WIN? Part 1 A-D
Part 1 - A - D
MATCH 1
ANTICS (Bug-Byte) 1984
vs.
AKANE (Hicks) 2021
That bug's kinda cute innhe? Though if I found one on my arm...
Grab those plants for extra pollen, which acts a bit like armour in Doom - once it runs out, you've nothing but stamina left
Okay, so I'm picking these games randomly from a huge list I've compiled over the years ("NERRRRDD!"), and it's got to be games I've not played before. Surprising I haven't tried this one though, since it was an early Crash Smash back in '84. Talk about being late to the party.
And what a strong start this is for the Oldie contingent! Here you play Barnabee and your mission is to rescue your cousin Boris, whom a load of cheeky ants have captured after they heard tales of his derring-do in The Birds And The Bees. You can find pollen along the way, which acts as a shield, as those creepy crawlers sure do sap your stamina quickly when they touch you.
It's a maze game essentially, but rather a good one, with lots of hidden passageways around to keep you on your toes (assuming bees have toes), and to search desperately for when you're stuck and out of ideas. Nice graphics and colour, with a slightly grating tune, but it's nice that they tried. Everything moves smoothly and it's fun for a while, though the mazes might start to get to you after a bit, leaving you with severe apine labyrinthitis. Good game for its age though.
Great bit of advertising on this screen. Insert Kevin Toms comment here
The white thing says 'ZX' on it. Not sure if it's a Speccy or a printer, or an early Sinclair calculator
Don't tell Clive, but this she-ninja looks better than his one
Grab that green antidote before the skulls take over at the bottom right, which means you're toast
Aha, this looks like being a close clash now, with two surprisingly strong games picked for both teams. And believe me, there are some duffers to come, I've seen 'em!
Some loony called Ony Anthrax (yes really) has poisoned everyone in the kingdom of Sindara. Ninjaette Akane has to go in search of her lost fiance and sort out Mr. Anthrax into the bargain. She has to regularly find and quaff antidotes to the poison along the way, as it doesn't take long at all to get into her system.
Platformer though this be, it's one of very high quality. Nice touches abound, like your jolly useful weapon, the shuriken. You can throw this at enemies, and as long as you hit them, you can take it back out of their bloodied bodies, and give it another go. If you miss, it gets embedded in the scenery, and if you're really adept, you can throw it into the scenery deliberately in an enemy's path, so it then proceeds to wander into it and carks. A clever little idea.
You also have a dash ability which can only be used sparingly, but is hellahandy. The need to find antidotes regularly really keeps things frantic, and there's a cracking tune to add to the atmosphere. It's really rather good.
Akane rushes to retrieve her embedded shuriken. The border's gone green, which means she needs an antidote fast
Being a ninja, she can jump quite high. Needs to as well to make progress with this bloomin' Megatree
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: ANTICS
BEST COLOUR: ANTICS
BEST SOUND: AKANE
MOST PLAYABLE: AKANE
MOST ORIGINAL: ANTICS
MOST ADDICTIVE: AKANE
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
ANTICS 3
AKANE 3
Antics wins on penalties!
MATCH 2 (OLD 1 vs. NEW 0)
BANGER RACER (Cult) 1990
vs.
BOUNCING BOMB REDUX (Retroleum) 2012
This screen is definitely the high point of the experience
And they're off! Wonder which one is my guy?
And now we move from the sublime to the ridiculous! Hopes were high initially that this might be a proper racing game. But no, it's one of many very basic looking sports sims from the Cult boys from the latter years of the Speccy's commercial era. Most were panned by the mags, although SU and YS occasionally took a liking to the odd one, unlike Crash. Their biggest hit of course was She Sells Sanctuary Simulator.
So you have to make the right choices to further your banger racing career, since every other formula of racing already has its own game by now. You make very superficial and extremely limited choices now and then, then watch some actual highlights for some light relief, not that you can tell which car is yours. I've played it 7 or 8 times and have found that whatever you do, and it really doesn't differ much anyway, your guy goes and crashes on lap 5 for no discernible reason. Fact.
Man, this is basic and joyless. Cult really were taking the...biscuit charging money for this sort of thing. In 1990 for Pete's sake! I've nearly always trusted Crash's ratings above the other mags, and in my opinion they certainly had Cult's number. This banger should be mashed.
My groovy Hillman Avenger has all mod cons, but it's ultimately fruitless
Ah, there's my guy! Parked up on the grass after going off on his own simply because he didn't fancy the look of lap 6
How's being vewy quiet going to help?
Level 1. You have to get the keys in a specific order, but this is much more fun than Technician Ted
This is an updated version of a game Phil Ruston originally made way back in 1986. Today it finds itself representing the new guard, though it could equally have been on the other side of the fence...field...net. My sporting metaphors have clearly gone to spit...
You play the part of a bomb unusually. Your bomby mission is to bounce your way through 20 screens to reach and blow up a reactor core, which has gone critical. Key icons have to be hit in order to open the door to the next level, while steering clear of security droids and spiky spikes.
It's a bit like a platform version of Bounder really. You can suppress your more bouncy instincts by pressing down, giving you a tad more control over things. The time limit is usually tight - clearly your hot-headed bomb has a short fuse. But this is an enjoyably challenging affair overall. All it lacks is a frantic soundtrack, but otherwise it's da bomb.
Level 2 introduces crumbling platforms into the mix
Four keys to get on level 3. Which as usual is as far as I got
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: BOUNCING BOMB REDUX
BEST COLOUR: BOUNCING BOMB REDUX
BEST SOUND: BOUNCING BOMB REDUX
MOST PLAYABLE: BOUNCING BOMB REDUX
MOST ORIGINAL: BOUNCING BOMB REDUX
MOST ADDICTIVE: BOUNCING BOMB REDUX
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
BANGER RACER 0
BOUNCING BOMB REDUX 6 (SIX)
Bouncing Bomb Redux wins!
MATCH 3 (OLD 1 vs. NEW 1)
CRYSTAL CASTLES (US Gold) 1986
vs.
CADAVERION (Mojon Twins) 2013
This is like what a loading screen for one of my games would be like. Fancy fonts and crap artwork!
Bentley's having that dream where trees chase you and stop you getting da honey(s)
This one was a conversion of a rather obscure coin-oop game (as we called them Oop North) from back in the day, whatever day that might have been, possibly a Tuesday. US Gold of course bought the rights to millions of arcade conversions, and to be fair a lot were decent enough, but not many stood out from the crowd. Generally you'd have been better leaving them to Ocean, once they'd got their act together after a shaky start.
There's next to no background here, so it's all just like a trippy dream. You play as a bear named Daimler, sorry Bentley, who simply has to collect crystals, as bears so often do. He has to clear them all off each stage, not unlike The Man Of Pac, while dodging marbles, skeletons and witches, and picking up the odd honey along the way. Slurp.
3D isometric games don't generally age that well. They looked amazing at the time, but pretty average now. Unlike many though, this game does quite well in the speed stakes, and is still quite fun to play. The enemies tend to be hard to avoid, but you do have a massive jump in your repertoire, which can often get you out of a tight squeeze. Don't know where the game sound went though, I must be playing the exclusive Librarian's Edition (TM).
Sadly you can't access a fighty mini-game by entering the Doomsdome
Don't know why Berthilda the witch hates bears so much. Things on Springs pursue BB, who's off to poop in the woods
Great load screen, and the Mojons unusually showing some restraint in the area of female coveredness
Screen one. Cheril is about to push a statue towards a plinth. Thrills, spills
Those crazy Mojo dudes are at it again here, armed with churros as usual (Ta Dave for that recycled joke). I've noticed a lot of Churrera engine games appear to be slightly aimless wandery numbers, but this one is a puzzler for a change. Starring Cheril, a girl who in most of their games seems to keep losing her bra. Well...
She's been in a series of Mojon adventures, namely Cheril's Perils, Cheril the Goddess, Cheril of the Wood, Cheril of Another Wood (I'm not making this up), and now Cadaverion. Busy girl! I've no instructions for this, but I think the gist is she must have to escape from the crypty place she has found herself in.
Gameplay consists of moving statues on to plinths against a pretty tight time limit. It's good harmless puzzly fun and well worth a play. You get lives, but annoyingly when you lose one, you have to go back to the start of the section again, often a number of screens back, which is a bit bobbins and not conducive to playability. At least her underwear stays put in this one, as far as I've played anyway.
Three statues to move on this screen. No, I won't think harder!
Now we're onto a graveyard level. More baddies and those statues won't move themselves, y'know
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: CRYSTAL CASTLES
BEST COLOUR: CADAVERION
BEST SOUND: CADAVERION
MOST PLAYABLE: CRYSTAL CASTLES
MOST ORIGINAL: CRYSTAL CASTLES
MOST ADDICTIVE: CRYSTAL CASTLES
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
CRYSTAL CASTLES 4
CADAVERION 2
Crystal Castles wins!
MATCH 4 (OLD 2 vs. NEW 1)
DOUBLE TROUBLE (Starlite) 1983
vs.
DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA (Retroworks) 2020
To be fair, it was probably Ultimate who started the trend of cool loading screens in those days
2 of the 3 pedestrian groups have carked. Surely the last one could just step on those tiny wee cars?
Ha, this is the joy of picking games completely randomly - one minute you've got an Antics, the next you have...this. Not the most heralded game in Spectrum history by any stretch of the imagination, and nothing at all to do with Dangermouse. Wonder what it's like...
It got panned by a few mags, so not a good start. It's a Painter type game where you, as a humble road painter called Tarmac Tim (once more, born to his profession) have to draw those dreaded yellow lines around the pedestrian folk of Sinclair Road (nice), to keep them safe from marauding maniac motorists, in cars that are somehow much smaller than them.
The initial screen looks alright, but the (double) trouble kicks in pretty soon. The three groups of pedestrians are randomly placed, as are the cars, so quite often you've got no chance, and the cars immediately mow folks down. Generally the odds are too great against poor Tim, but I did manage to complete a screen a few times. Can't say that I enjoyed it though. This was Starlite's only Speccy game, and it cost nearly six quid. Ouch.
Argh, double yellow everywhere. At least cycle lanes hadn't been invented just yet
Alas, poor Tarmac Tim has bought the big one. He melts dramatically into a yellow liney mess
It's probably just me, but I can't work out what the heck I'm looking at here
Level 2 is great. Pick up the brick, get the key, go through the door. I can do that
Gominolo, who looks suspiciously like a clown (thanks yet again, Europe) has been locked in his own king's dungeon by invading enemy forces. Quite right too, all clowns, jesters and mimes should be arrested immediately in my book. The mental scarring has to end now.
Tragically it looks like he can find a way out, but at least there are 55 rooms in his way first. Each room has a key he has to get to, mostly by moving discarded Arkanoid bricks around to make staircases to reach them. Fair enough, but about 5 screens in I had to move a huge staircase from one end of the screen to the other, brick by brick. Not sure I need that in my life.
It's another modern puzzle game then, and seemingly not a bad one, despite the manual nature of most of the screens. Later ones certainly look more interesting (I peeked). It's nicely presented and very colourful, though I'd really have liked an in-game tune to spice things up somewhat. I know I always say that, but I do like a choon to enjoy while I'm swearing at puzzle games.
This level of Batty looks particularly challenging
This looks simple but takes ages. I feel a migraine coming on
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA
BEST COLOUR: DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA
BEST SOUND: DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA
MOST PLAYABLE: DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA
MOST ORIGINAL: DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA
MOST ADDICTIVE: DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
DOUBLE TROUBLE 0
DUNGEONS OF GOMILANDIA 6 (SIX)
Dungeons of Gomilandia wins!
THAT'S ENOUGH FOR NOW! THINGS ARE NICELY POISED AT 2-2 AND I DIDN'T EVEN FIX THAT, I PROMISE...
TO BE CONTINUED LATER, SINCE 22 MORE LETTERS ARE STILL TO COME. BWAH!
METAL MAN REMIXED and MATTHEW CRANSTON BATTLES
and
MATTHEW CRANSTON BATTLES
Oleg Origin
2015
RoboCop was pretty much the Spectrum's number one selling game for ages, if my memory serves me well. Wasn't it Top of the Pops for over a year? Have to check with Bruno Brookes. I didn't play it at the time, maybe because I was 15 and the film was certainly an 18 cert. Though it looks like the game didn't have an age cert. I guess on balance it wasn't much different to most other games in terms of violence.
Level 2's moody red sky looks down on the Stones' wrecked tour bus. You can even go inside it, Keith's having a cuppa
Frank Slayer chips in with a cutting comment while MM negotiates a tricky foe. At least health is handily placed
But in 1997 Oleg Origin did his own version of RoboCop on steroids and called it Metal Man. It was a standout game at the time, though quite how many folk were paying attention to the Speccy scene in 1997 I don't know. But the game was so good that many claim it was responsible for the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the fall of communism. Even though that was 8 years earlier. That's just how iconic it was.
Metal Man himself looked a bit dweeby in '97, but he was later reloaded in 2014 and then remixed a year later, with a slick new image. Well, shades. It's amazing what a difference they can make.
The plot for this third incarnation of the game is as follows. Cue deep voiceover. New York in the near future. The mafia have taken over the city, running riot with their battle robots and other new technological macguffins. A few brave police forces, refusing to accept the new regime, have been forced underground.
Aaahhh, MM's mum has kindly given him a 50p so he can go on the ride for a minute
Some top advice from Linda here, that doggy don't look friendly
But one cop, Matthew Cranston (Brian's bro), aka Metal Man, is determined to destroy the mafia gangs and their leader, Frank Slayer (born to the job). He is assisted by Linda Hart (from Hart To Hart?) as his guide, and I.T. guru Michael Kroun (I got nothing).
He must fight his way through 5 levels of destruction, namely an abandoned building, the junk yard, 2 buildings with bombs in them, a robot plant and finally Mr. Slayer's skyscraper.
On level 1 he must locate all parts of the system control chip used by the gang's super-stacker '90s PC. Then find their computer and upload a virus (I'd recommend the Rick Astley one to seriously p*** them off) before cheesing it out of there. Then level 2 sees you trying to find codes for the gang's hidden armoury while fighting off vicious mutated junkyard dogs. So a good mix of shooty slaughter and technology then.
Maybe all games should have a Side B offering? Though in many cases, that wouldn't be such a treat
That there's one of the 3 doobries Matty boy has to collect on each Matthew Cranston Battles stage
It's not news in 2023 I know, but this game is extraordinary. The graphics are so detailed and colourful it's ridiculous. The action comes thick and fast, but doesn't slow down at all, even when the screen is chock-full of huge sprites. How on earth this is possible on a Spectrum beggars belief.
The gameplay is great too. Your first few goes might not last terribly long, but once you're familiar with each level's layout, you'll find you make progress most every time you play it. Different elements are introduced regularly too, like a little plane thing you can fly on stage 1, which looks a bit like a 50p kiddy ride, but packs more punch. And usable crushing machines on stage 2.
It came to my attention while researching MM (yes I do research, don't act so surprised) that together with the Reloaded version of this game, there came a B-Side called Matthew Cranston Battles. This too deserves some recognition, doncha think?
Ayup. It's pretty much the same sort of thing as the main game, only you have to collect 3 thingies on each level. I've found no instructions anywhere, so I'm a bit in the dark. It's nice to have this as a kind of DLC though, as if you've got a great game, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with having even more of the same. Unless you release it as a sequel and charge a fortune for it, of course! Never happened back in the day, did it???
Metal Man meets The Punisher. I'd watch that
THE VERDICT
These 2 games are clearly rubbish and should be avoided at all costs. Sorry, thought I was writing for Sinclair User then. Clearly Metal Man is iconic, and a stunning example of what can be done on the machine, even in the late '90s.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATINGS
MONSTER HIT!!!
METAL MAN REMIXED
95%
MATTHEW CRANSTON BATTLES
90%
VIRGIL'S PURGATORY
Amaweks
2021
There aren't many platform games based on classical works, are there? Dynamite Dan wasn't an interpretation of an obscure Shakespearean sonnet. Brian Bloodaxe wasn't a re-imagining of Paradise Lost. Monty On The Run owed nothing to Wuthering Heights. I could go on, but sense I shouldn't.
It's only the start screen and our hero's already lost his head
Big Boss One, a Frankenstein's monster type creature, propels headless skeletons at you. Lorks!
But Virgil's Purgatory is different. I thought that since I've read plenty of The Aeneid, I'd have this one covered, but no. It's based on Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, which I've heard of, but haven't watched the podcast or read the emoji version thereof.
It's about the author's journey through the nine circles of Hell, with Roman superstar poet Virgil as his guide. First comes the Inferno part famously, followed by Purgatory and finally Paradise if you're lucky. It's all an allegory for the soul's journey to God, y'see. Thanks again Wookiepedia! Rawr!
This game's author, Mr. Amaweks, made this as a PC game in 2016, and then the Speccy convo (which looks much nicer to me) came in 2021. He clearly takes an artistic approach to his work, as seen in the awesome Triangle Circle Square, reviewed in Part 3. In the instructions, he explains the story behind why he wrote this game, something to do with Brazilian traditions and the like, but you'd probably have to have been there to fully understand it. Anyway, it's proper arty like, which is nice.
You have to get up top if possible here, avoiding the snake-spitting skull monstrosity. Yeeks!
This guy gives you cryptic hints while The Angel Of Agony on the left...restores your health
You start by falling into Purgatory, quite a red place generally. You have to escape somehow, as it's full of snakes and salesmen. And you've got quite a novel way of dealing with any enemies you happen across - you throw your head at them. I'm not sure if that's a metaphor or just a really good joke, but it sure is fun!
You have to make sure your aim is true though, as every time you hurl your bonce, you have to go and retrieve it again. If you get it spot-on, it falls back onto your body again, which is convenient.
There are boss battles along the way, and I'm currently stuck fighting a pesky snake which won't go down easy, let me tell ya. If you die, you can start again at the beginning, but any doors you've managed to open will stay open. This is a nice anti-frustration feature, which all games should try to adopt please? Thanks.
A rare white sky in Purgatory. That cute little mouse creature is about to run at you with vicious intent
"Enter the church of the headless skeletons". An Iron Maiden classic
The landscapes are artily designed in a distinctive and minmalistic style, and the hero of the piece, who may or may not be Virgil himself, is nicely animated "with realistic head-flinging action". Colour is sparsely used, which is effective in creating an otherworldly ambience, while a not particularly Hellish tune plays constantly as you make your way through Purgatory. All very pleasant.
So this is a worthwhile platformer which offers something a little different from the hordes of others out there. Namely the opportunity to throw your head around in an artistic environment. And who doesn't want that?
Here's that bloomin' snake I'm stuck on. Red Centipede escapees rain down from the sky to make matters worse
THE VERDICT
This is more enjoyable than Purgatory ought to be, and an interesting twist on the ubiquitous common or garden platform game.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
85%
THE GAMES THAT TIME FORGOT - 1988 EDITION
1988 EDITION
DYNASTAR
Pirate
No inlay or instructions for this game, I'm afraid. I was lucky to find this cover pic, so thanks to whichever website I borrowed it from (can't find it now...) So you're an astronaut. In a maze. With a gun. You can find a jetpack. And various objects to help you. Hmmm.
Venus fly-traps really are lethal on Venus itself
Some quite nice sprites dash around the place at breakneck speeds
The team behind it is Binary Dynamics, not to be confused with Binary Design or Dinamic. They consist of Martyn Hartley and Paul Scrivin, who also made The Hit Squad and Prince Clumsy for Code Masters, and Call Me Psycho for Pirate. Pirate's other titles include Holiday In Sumaria and...several Harry S. Price titles. Yep.
With Pirate's track record, you'd probably expect this game to be pretty sub-standard. But it's really not that bad. It's pretty much a Starquake clone, which we've seen half a million times, but this is not a duff one at all.
Dallas in the future is over-run by slugs, robots and fans
If you see a purple wulf, I mean wolf, probably best avoid it
There are the usual objects to collect, transporters to go through, aliens to zap and avoid, scenery changes from section to section. All present and correct.
The game zips along at a fair old pace, maybe a little too fast, unless that's just my emulator. The enemies tend to fly at you at great speed, making it a bit tricky to shoot them, but better too fast than too slow, eh? Graphics are big and pretty decent, there's bags of colour everywhere, though sound is no great shakes.
Yargh, what in the name of Christ is this 'orrible thing?!
Here's "Call Me Psycho". Those Binary Dynamics guys sure love their humungous sprites
You can explore a fair old area on each go too, which can make or break a game like this. Not that I got terribly far in my mission to...do whatever it is I was meant to be doing. But I had a reasonably good time getting nowhere much, so that's got to count for something.
RATING 60%
POSITION 5th out of 5
REWARD
The Last Place Potato
EGGHEAD
Silverbird
I'd like to see what responses they got to "What do you think of our new Silverbird packaging?" I bet the phrase 'migraine-inducing' comes up regularly
By 1988 Firebird's budget arm, Silverbird, were putting out some fairly dubious games, with the notable exception of Rebelstar 2, under that garish stripy pink and black packaging of theirs. Firebird were probably concentrating more on their full-price titles by this point, as that was where the big money was at. I wonder what kind of profit they made on a £1.99 game? Couldn't have been much.
Egghead finds himself in a colourful place, though the blue toaster and plant thing just sit there and do nothing
Anyway they acquired this one from a Swedish team called Cross Technics, who had called the game Hamte Damte, which took me a few seconds to figure out. Silverbird renamed it Egghead, later to be plagiarised over and over by Jonathan Cauldwell. Only kidding JC!
The plot is this. You must help Egghead come out of his shell, literally. His ma is awol, so he has to use an infra-red heater in place of her fluffy rear end. Trouble is, he's lost all the parts of it, so has to go find them all.
Our ovoid ally fires some stuff at a purple thingummy
Jump into the purple charger unit to get your health back, and don't get hammered
There are teleporters, swappers and chargers a la Starquake, and useful objects like ULA chips, a helmet, a parachute and a rocket. Yep, after Dynastar, this is another title that owes much to Stephen Crow's spacey mazey classic.
But again (again) I'm glad to report that this is another worthwhile clone. I guess everyone must have mastered this type of game by 1988. Your egg is a cute little thing which can jump around and even shoot at enemies, though quite what he shoots I don't know. Albumen? Urgh.
That car door is a teleporter. Egghead has acquired a chip. Mmm, egg and chips
Wait a minute, what gives? Our eggs seem to have got scrambled here
Play is a little more sedate than Dynastar, which is good, though I got no further in the long run. It's a nicely made game though, with crisp, smooth graphics, hugely colourful landscapes and a tune on the title screen, if not in the game itself.
I could do without any more Starquake homages for now though, if that's at all possible? I'd even welcome a JSW clone at this point.
RATING 65%
POSITION 4th out of 5
REWARD
4th Place Chocolate Coin
MAJIK
Mastertronic
Icon/menu driven adventures. Hmmm. It's debatable whether they're more or less annoying than ones with a free input. To be fair, they're all irritating. Really it took point-and-click games to come along in the '90s before any adventures became even vaguely tolerable. Mind you, they're mostly a pain in the leathern codpiece too, but not at least in a vocabularical way...
Piradon the anti-allergy wizard approaches village idiot Capriol. Yes, you can kill him
This lady has donned a stick-on beard, so they let her into the pirate-themed pub
On the Spectrum most games of this type came from adventurous duo Clive Wilson and Les Hogarth. This was presumably their last, with previous titles being Kobyashi Naru, Zzzz, Shard Of Inovar and Venom. All these games insisted on giving you a set list of commands to choose from, sometimes a quite bewildering amount of them.
You might not know this, but you are the great magician Piradon. Your magician mission is to find and rescue Prince Gideon, thought to be held captive by the evil Dolmir, so he can be reunited with his dad, King Markham, who is on his deathbed. Only Gideon can unite the Clans of the Reaches and prevent Dolmir from taking over, y'see.
It's a bit like having to wade through a dictionary to find roughly what you're trying to do
Looks like these guys are going to have to change the heads on their coins soon too
So, serious stuff then. Not many laffs to be had, I'd imagine. You start off wandering aimlessly, but can't access many locations initially, apart from the good old public house. There are pretty pictures for most places, and when you click on the actions button, you get the choice of 36 actions. Which seems a lot and leaves you wondering if more traditional "You can't do that" adventures might be less hassle after all.
Unsurprisingly I couldn't get far, but I'm going to be unusually generous in the scoring stakes, to allow for two things.
Thing 1 is my petulance and ineptitude when it comes to adventure games. And thing B is my attention to detail. No, actually it's that this type of game probably seemed a lot better at the time, but has aged quite badly, due to no fault of its own.
If this was an arcade game, you'd just try to climb up, fail, then move on to something else. This is more painful by far
This here is 'Venom', the guys still trying to find ways to accommodate all those commands
Also it was only cheap, so that's in its favour too. There could well be a world of excitement and intrigue lurking within this game. Just I couldn't find it. Duh!
RATING 70%
POSITION 3rd out of 5
REWARD
Bronze Medal - Hey, not bad!
MISSION ELEVATOR
Kixx
The majority of Kixx's releases were actually re-releases, mostly of US Gold games, but also the likes of the Barbarian and Way Of The Tiger titles too. Latecomers to the Speccy scene no doubt lapped these up, even if they were old news to us stalwarts. I do remember buying Valhalla as a re-release late in the '80s, then realising it hadn't aged terribly well...Anyway, this game is an actual original from Kixx, so it is.
I guess in the UK this should be called 'Mission Lift' which sounds even duller
Our guy had best get shooting quick, a hitman is already descending, while the other one considers suicide
Well, original-ish maybe. Since it's inspired by the coin-op Elevator Action, which Quicksilva converted to the Speccy a year prior to this. But cheaper versions of full-price games are a large part of what the budget market was all about, so it's all cool legit. Unless you do a Harry S. Price and just nick the original game's code wholesale. Have they caught up with him yet?
Tom Clancy time! The FBI building (cunningly disguised as a hotel) is under attack! Someone has gone and planted a bomb on the 62nd floor! You play FBI super agent Trevor (chortle) who must get up there and defuse it! Stat!
A code consisting of 16 parts needs to be found in order to disable said bomb, so Trevor must search all sorts of things to find these bits of code, while dealing with lethal hitmen, of which there are many.
This game thinks it's funny to make snide comments when you fail. That's so 1982
Having a nice 'water cooler moment' chat with a gangster on the second floor
It sounds like the plot of most of the books I end up getting my dad for Xmas, all very gung-ho and mac-ho. And potentially dull, a bit like I found Impossible Mission to be when I tried that back in the day. I've not played Elevator Action mind, so I can't compare to that one. My bad.
Thankfully this game turns out to be rather fun. It's pretty fast and the enemy gangsters do tend to mess you up pretty darn regularly, normally when you're busy examining pot plants or big clocks, but that makes it a more arcadey experience, which is welcome. Some objects even have hidden depths, such as tables with dice mini games attached to them, not that you've really got time for frittering your wealth away, but hey.
Clever Trevor sadly finds no 'Love In An Elevator'. Only bullets and pain
Not had enough elevator action yet? Well here's Elevator Action by the Game Lords themselves
The graphics are good, the screen is admirably colourful, the sound is adequate. I got nowhere near reaching the 62nd floor, more like about the 7th, but really it's not a bad little offering. Espionage with a bit of bullet flinging (and dodging) thrown in for good measure. Eat your heart out, Jason Reacher...or Jack Bourne...whoever they are.
RATING 74%
POSITION 2nd out of 5
REWARD
Silver Medal - Not too shabby!
SLUG
Alternative
Quite a sinister cover here, unlike the cutesy style of the game. Gulp
When it came to budget games, the best software houses were surely Firebird and Mastertronic. Then later Code Masters, who were good in spite of their excessive self-promotion. They'll never amount to anything, those guys!
Some were middling in terms of quality but had their moments. Like Players or Atlantis perhaps. But more still seemed to have no qualms about continually inflicting dire games on the vulnerable public, debating how to spend their mighty 2 quid pocket money.
Blue slug has to drop through the levels fast to get to that bomb, which looks unlikely from this position
Alpha Omega, Americana, Power House, Pirate, Cult. Not many stellar releases among that lot. Alternative were possibly part of the middle group, since they seemed to specialise almost exclusively in the mundane. At best.
So surely I've fallen completely out of my tree by putting one of their products at numero uno in this little feature? Well possibly so, I do wonder sometimes. Let me write a bit more and see if I still agree with myself by the end of this bit.
Here be the plot. Slug's girlfriend has been kidnapped by a huge mechanical hand and whipped off to a strange land where monstrous creatures roam. He must find hearts, shoot slime and defuse bombs on each screen in his quest to get his gal slug back.
Nooooo! Slugatha gets slugnapped. Who'd want a slug? Stop saying slug, the word's lost all meaning now
Stage 2 is looking pretty busy. Grab that heart, then 3 more, and you're golden
This is apparently a conversion of C64 (urgh, I feel unclean) game Ooie Gooie, which sounds gross but is certainly a better title than the rather boring 'Slug'.
And guess what? This is pretty much a Jumping Jack clone, a rare thing I think. I loved JJ back in the day. It was an original, frustrating and addictive early Speccy classic in my book. I even got to level 10, gaming god that I am.
There's no poem in this game though, but that aside, it's not dissimilar to the Imagine classic. Your slug has to fall strategically through holes so as not to land on enemies (he's not Mario) and pick up 4 hearts to reach the next level. If a bomb appears, you get a few seconds to get to it, which is often quite a task. Slug can shoot goo at his enemies as well, a trick Jack never had up his stick-man sleeve.
It's particularly tricky gauging the drop from the bottom of the screen back to the top, which I kept screwing up. And you mustn't forget that the screen wraps round left and right.
"Level 3 was as far as he got. Young Jack had skills, but not a lot"
The authors also wrote 'Rik The Roadie' as an Alternative to Slug
But it's maddeningly addictive and goes pretty damn fast actually. The graphics are chunky and cute, even though we're talking about 'orrid slugs here. Colour is good and sound is good enough.
Overall it's as fast and furious as The Fast And The Furious 5 (probably) and really rather a good budget game. So hat's off to those splendid Alternative fellows. I knew they had it in 'em!
RATING 77%
POSITION 1st out of 5
REWARD
Gold Medal - Top of the Class!
-FIN-
DON QUIXOTE
Zosya
2022
Well we've had The Divine Comedy as a game, now there's Donny Boy Quixote as well. If we're not careful, us Spectrum users might end up getting 'alf educated and cultural, like! We've got to be ahead of those Commodore and Amstrad types anyway, surely? Maybe a University Challenge is called for?
Our Don could do with doing some housekeeping, never mind bonkers adventuring
Mr. Q has managed to find all the parts of his armour. His horse contemplates the massive weight he's about to carry
So. Don Quixote. It'd be awkward if I had no idea what the book was about, wouldn't it? I know Nik Kershaw wrote a song about him, but I only know two lines of it...My 10 year old daughter advises me there's a windmill involved somewhere, so she's clearly better informed than me.
And so once more to the Darkweb for to get a clue. Riffle, riffle. Aha, okay. So a middle-aged fellow fancies himself as a knight, having read many heroic tales of such, and goes in search of adventure with his farmer neighbour, but is hindered by the fact he's pretty much insane, and so his judgement and general grip on reality stink. At one point he attacks a windmill, thinking it's a giant. Ah, well done Eve!
Don arrives at a nearby town. But just who the heck are all these people? Zosya ain't telling
This map's quite cute. I'm sure we could have had some labels though to clarify matters
It sounds pretty entertaining, will have to read it at some point, partly to help with this here game. It does explain some of what I've seen so far too. Though not all.
Donny Q's first task is to rush around his house, grabbing various parts of his armour, while avoiding spiders and bats. Then he can mount his horsey and go travelling on some knightly quests. He seems to be collecting books from around and about, and shortly he picks up his farmer friend, who rides a donkey called Oaty. And finds a windmill plus various animals to slaughter, mistaking them for wrongdoers. Oops.
This game is famously crammed into 16K, which is certainly impressive, although dare I suggest in this day and age, a tad irrelevant. Unless there are some sticklers who bought their 16K Speccy back in '82, and have stoically persevered with it all this time, claiming the 48K version to be "just a passing fad", hoping and praying that 40 years later, they'd get a new game they could actually play!
This bit's odd. You leave your shield on a table, then a villager comes and nicks it. Then you can progress your quest
Don now has his neighbour with him to share in his misguided adventuring. Hope he's a good influence
Because it's so neatly fitted into such a scanty size of memory, there aren't too many niceties evident. No music, no text really, which is understandable, but ironically makes the game less understandable. Characters, places and objectives aren't explained at all, so you just have to make the best of it. Personally I found myself wishing for a more polished and thorough version, which might explain the plot more.
But the game looks good, with some great sprites, and is enjoyable to play, so chalk another success up to those ingenious Zosya folks. But guys, no ZX81 games next please - you've proved you're bloody good at programming already, so play to your strengths!
Don tries tilting at windmills, but it goes a bit wrong
THE VERDICT
Fancy embarking on a classical cultural kind of a quest for a change? You could do a lot worse than this for your old unexpanded 16K Spectrum, ya big cheapskate!
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
86%
THIEVES SCHOOL
World XXI Soft
2008
After studying hard for 5 years at Thieves School, like you do, Mist and Courage, who are actually humans, flunk their final exam, meaning they can't graduate. Maybe should have gone to Bribery or Forgery School instead. Fortunately their scrupulously honest and trustworthy teachers throw them a lifeline. They arrange for them to go on a 'delictive' tour around the world and steal lots and lots of things for them. Then they can say they passed.
Courage (possibly) has to grab the paintings and stun the dogs with his yellow balls
Nicolas Cage and that lady who reads the news decide to blackmail our would-be thieves. Most delictive
Hopefully such a place as Thieves School doesn't exist in Spain, but you never know I suppose. Sounds like a handy place for ne'er-do-well flibbertigibbets to hone their dubious talents. Not sure it would work out really though, it'd be like having a well-drilled Organisation Of Anarchists. Bit of a tricky concept. Getting them all to attend the weekly Wednesday night meeting in the Church Hall would be a nightmare.
There are 2 game modes here. The main one is 'Action-Robbery', where you have to nick everything and clobber any and all poor saps who are guarding the area. The other is 'Stealth-Larceny' where you have no offensive weapons available, just your stealthy instincts (zero in my case). Even more game modes can be accessed as well, including co-operative play with a villainous friend. Pretty impressive, should go down a treat at retro computer shows, but won't 'cos people insist on playing Manic Miner and Jetpac all the time. And nothing else.
We're temporarily dazed and look set to get boshed and bitten big time when we come round
Natalie Imbruglia and Samwise Gamgee plead pathetically for a pass in their Burglary 101 exam
There's a lengthy intro, a bit like Ariel Ruiz did for Carlos Michelis, reviewed in Part 1 if you remember (nope). It's in turns impressive and amusing, mainly because when the digitised characters speak, their lips move in a rather silly way. Bit of a shame, as I love the ambition here - it's even a separate load to the main game, it's so memory-heavy.
After so many options and such a long preamble, one might expect the game to be a bit serious, over complicated and hard to grasp at first. But it totally ain't, it's arcadey stuff all the way, baby. It's along the lines of the excellent Bonnie And Clyde, a bit Bomb Jacky, like.
Action-Robbery mode pretty much consists of jumping around and throwing balls at the guards, both human and canine. Quite an odd way of staging a robbery really, it's more like dodgeball, but you know what, it's great fun. These balls are described in the blurb merely as 'harmful objects' rather vaguely. Some are green and some are red, and you can control their trajectory to an extent, but I mostly just lobbed them up in the air and let the chips fall where they may. Typical me.
This spider proved a tough nut to crack. Its hateful offspring kept biting my ankles and putting me off
Great use of colour in this game, and it moves at quite a pace too
When you hit someone with a dodgeball, they're stunned for a bit, as you would be. Hit them again and they fall to the bottom of the screen, but carry on after a further period of bewilderment. Get them once more and they eventually naff off. So you can imagine there's a LOT of throwing balls at people. Which is aces.
There are boss levels at certain intervals. I'm currently stuck down a diamond mine battling a big spider (I'm writing this when I get a break now and then) and a seemingly infinite number of annoying smaller ones. Got well past level 3 though, so that's a win by Al standards.
The graphics are decent and colourful, with busy backgrounds too, and some great music as well, which pleases me no end. This game is massively addictive, and hugely playable, with admirable variety and attention to detail. There's even an expansion, like Carlos Michelis had, called The Mini Oasis, but sadly I couldn't get my version to work. Despite this, Thieves School is an absolute must for anyone who enjoys throwing balls at people, which, let's be honest, is all of us.
"You'll never take me alive, copper! Ah, you just did." Mist and Courage fought the law and the law won
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
Not so much thievery as just having a whale of a time chucking balls around. Couldn't be more fun if it tried.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
90%
Al 'n' Dave's A-Z of Speed Reviews - Part 3
Modern Era Games, part 3 - I to L
I NEED SPEED
Computer Emuzone
2009
Well so do I mate, but I ain't got none, so bog off! Wait, this isn't a game about drugs? And drugs are bad, m'kay? This intro needs a do-over and fast. The authors of the game include MetalBrain, Stargazer and Utopian. Thought you'd like to know. And it's a top-down racer, the likes of which we haven't seen for millennia. It's over to Davino Turborini now on the grid for the latest news.
Dave: Thanks Des. Flippin' 'eck, this game is making me queasy! Is there any way I can get a full screen view? The half-screen on the right is thoroughly distracting, and I have no idea where I am on the track. The graphics are so big it feels like I've got a visibility range of about 10 yards...Oo eck, don't think I can ho...Bllleeeuuurghhh..!! Oh no, all over the steering wheel, sorry!
I suppose I should stop complaining - everything else is pretty slick, the presentation, music and the 8 billion menu options with their dancing text. And I suppose working out which way to go isn't TOO bad, as long as you don't hit any other cars. Which I did frequently.
Al: This one promises so much. It's got the top-down view of many a fun racing game over the years, be it 3D Stock Cars or Micro Machines. It's got stacks of options for number of players, difficulty and choice of tracks. It's even got some decent music playing throughout. So its a darn tootin’ shame it's so hard to play. You tend to lose your place on the circuit frequently, and the track is too wide, which adds to the disorientation. Also having 2 different views right next to each other makes matters worse, you need the full screen really. Of course, it could just be me. And Dave.
Dave: Nicely presented game, but I don't really like it. Sorry!
5.5/10
Al: Sorry from me too, although I don’t know why we’re so apologetic! It's just too hard and fiddly to enjoy much
5/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: We probably all know the best racing games already (though I don’t myself, being a fictional ‘70s American police detective), so which others, both mediocre and dire, do you recall?
Dave: Racing games eh? Ooh, well I enjoyed Enduro Racer, though my favourites were probably some of the slower ones like Buggy Blast. And ATV Simulator was quite entertaining, the way you have to control your man and get back on your err... ATV…when you fall off. Most of the Codies simulators (Grand Prix, Jet Bike, BMX) I thought were ace too. And of course, the majestic 3D Stock Car Championship, one of the best multiplayer racers out there. Also, a shout out ("YAAAARGHH!") to one of the earliest racing games I acquired, Race Fun by Rabbit Software. Errrr, yeah, it was a bit crap. But gets a shout out anyway. Also, am I the only person to have enjoyed the Speccy port of Outrun? Probably.
Columbo: That was quite interesting once you’d answered the question I’d actually asked, sir! Mr. Al, please stick to just the mediocre and the dire, unlike your distracted colleague, who I’m now going to book for wasting police time. And for shouting out too much.
Al: I know, lieutenant, he gets carried away sometimes, unlike me. Right, well Chequered Flag was early but unexciting, what with no other cars on track. I can’t share Dave’s enthusiasm for Outrun, I’m afraid – it was so slow, I’m amazed it was such a hit. Run Baby Run was a reasonable budget game, getting the cop cars to tail you until they take each other out. But Race Ace and F1 Simulator were the pits (hoho), fictional ashtray steering wheel notwithstanding.
JINJ 2: BELMONTE'S REVENGE
Retroworks
2012
There's nothing like jumping in on a sequel when you've not played or heard of the original. Makes it much more exciting. Or impossibly confusing...You got your memory back at the end of the first game (spoiler, ah too late). You found a scroll which was a musical score, and some mysterious characters on it. The professor (who?) Invoked a load of demons and they ate him as thanks. That's all we have to go on.
Dave: How can a game be both relaxing and stressful at the same time? This collect-em-up (is that a thing?) seems to manage it. Most of the time I'm just trundling around, until I have to navigate a tricky narrow section with a couple of nasties, and then I lose all my lives. Rinse and repeat. I'm not sure what to make of it. The wandering around is okay for a while, but there are a lot of dead ends and backtracking. Also, are you disappointed or relieved that I haven't made a single note/musical-related pun? I was tempted but managed to STAVE the temptation off. Guffaw.
Al: MINIMal applause for that one, dude! This game's certainly colourful enough, the graphics for the characters and scenery are not bad at all, although your white fella clashes fairly badly with the mostly blue on black background, like he's one of the Weeks. Trouble is, this game lacks two things. One is some in game music, though we do have a menu screen tune which is well and good. The second though is the game is a bit too dull. You have to find musical notes to add to the score at the top (High score? No? OK) but as usual it's hard to get more than a couple, and there's not much else to do.
Dave: Slick but not particularly enthralling. It's got a nice tune on the menu (would've been nice if it played throughout the game). And interesting menu option to play with the 'wallpaper' off
5.5/10
Al: Personally I like my wallpaper on, makes the game feel warmer. A good basis for a game, but it badly needs a little more
5/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: Any superior sequels spring to mind, gents? And any sucky ones?
Dave: Top sequels eh? Well I reckon Target; Renegade was superior to Renegade (controversial?). Let's not mention the third and pretend that we're in an alternate reality and it was never written. Android 2 was an ace game, and a sequel where I never played the first one. Ummm... Does Horace Goes Skiing count? Arguably the best of the Horace games. As far as sucky sequels are concerned, here’s an odd one - Lord Of The Rings, a bit of a disappointment after The Hobbit. The location graphics are a bit carp, and they run a lot slower for some reason. I thought Magnetron was okay but some mags disagreed.
Al: So many rubbishy cash-in ones unfortunately, e.g. Renegade 3, Bomb Jack 2, Yie Ar Kung Fu 2, a million Spy vs. Spys, a trillion Boulder Dashes. Better ones? You’d have to say IK+ made a much bigger splash than the original, mostly due to growing a third combatant. Android 2 and Target; Renegade were indeed better than their originals too. Probably Ghostbusters 2 was since that wouldn’t be too hard.
Dave: Al, I asked you not to mention Renegade 3. Argh, there it is again!
Al: Oh yes, sorry. Well at least it was “the final chapter”, hopefully that can bring you some closure on the matter.
KRPAT
Peter Macej
1995
Interesting story behind this game. The author wrote it between 1992 and 1994, on something called a Didaktik M, a Czech clone of the Spectrum. But it wasn't released commercially, despite looking the business. The highly Eastern European plot goes like this. Krpat is a peaceful devil, whose witchy woman Frndolina has been kidnapped by Lucipher the Hell Lord, who headlined at Bloodstock this year. Krpat must find 7 keys to unlock the gate of inferno spiral. Wow.
Dave: Well, what a nice looking game. Awesome graphics and animations. The game has a Savage vibe, but IMO it's better (cue expressions of shock). Some of the characters are remines... remenish... a bit like ones that Joffa might have come up with. And this was written in the early ‘90s on a Speccy clone, that surely deserves extra brownie points. With the sprites being mahoosive, it suffers slightly from a cramped playing area which I found made it awkward to work out where I was on the map. But it's not too bad I suppose.
Unfortunately I didn't get very far - though the game doesn't feel unfair as you have lots of energy and can get to know the enemy movement patterns.
Al: Phewee, just check out the graphics on this game. They're worth the admission price alone. The sprites are enormous, which again reminds me of Trapdoor, but they even move pretty fast too somehow. A riot of colour greets you in this cavern of 9 levels, as you try to collect all the keys. Only downside is the gameplay, which is a tad samey, and it seems quite a challenge to make much progress.
Dave: In the words of Lucipher, "Cha, cha, cha..!" (He says this at game over, translates to “Mwa,ha,ha!”)
7.5/10
Al: Tricky game, a bit limited but man, those graphics! Sometimes they're enough on their own
8/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: Being American, I think all youse Europeaners are much the same, but tell me, do you have any fave wacky foreign games?
Al: Outrageous, lieutenant, I blame your lot for US Gold! Maybe these aren’t that wacky, but Bugaboo and Sir Fred from Spain were quite unique in their way. I have to mention Sabrina too, for 2 obvious reasons (graphics and gameplay of course, don't know what you were thinking)
Dave: Every crazy wacky game I can think of for the Speccy was of British origin! Though I think the hands-down winner has to go to a modern-ish game, written for the 'Crap Games Competition'. I'm counting it because the game really isn't crap, but it's ridiculous... It's by the Mojon Twins and it's called (deep breath)... He Had Such A Big Head That If He Were A Cat He Would Have To Toss The Mice From Under The Bed With A Brow
The game is as bonkers as the title. Your huge head keeps getting stuck on stuff, it’s quite distressing.
Al: That’s why I’ve got you onboard amigo, for gems like that!
LAND OF THE DEAD
Steve Westwood
2012
Spectrum Computing tells us that the author programmed this by himself, for himself, in basic in 1993. I just typed 1893 then and laughed a little. Truly this man was ahead of his time. It looks like a computerised version of the classic Fighting Fantasy books we all knew and loved. Being ‘80s geeks. But would this game allow cheating quite so easily, I wonder? Over to Dungeon Master Davegard.
Dave: Ooh, 'bout time we had a nice dungeon crawl/hack. Used to quite enjoy this sort of thing back in the time that I call the 'Zed-to-Spec' transition era (‘82/’83). Wha? It was written in 1993? OK then, let’s check it out. ”With a fud - the bear falls dead"...This is weird... Have I picked the wrong game with the same title?? Well I suppose it's a game...of sorts. It's quite difficult, you really need to know when to run or attack (bit like real life eh, readers?) Sod it, I'm going to BREAK into the game, don't you try to stop me!
Oh - I thought there was going to be an end, but it looks like a high score thing, 'glory points' or something dodgy. Some bits (and typos) are quite entertaining. I wanted to see some of the descriptions of the actions, the consequences of said actions, and the bizarre ways the monsters attack you (zombie whacking you about the head with a staff, anyone?)
Al: That’s hacking, that is, ’Disassembly Dave’ – I’m reporting you to the lieutenant straight away, whiney tattletale that I am!! Anyway, this game is so simple, written in basic and in white on black. You either continue your journey, talk to someone or fight them, that's it. And to fight, you pick a random number and hope for the best. This game makes me wish someone had tried to properly reproduce those FF books on the Speccy, the only shame here is this is a very simplified version. I had a couple of goes which took 15 minutes each, winning quite a few battles but ultimately not quite reaching my goal.
Dave: The game wasn't designed for public consumption, but it’s not a bad distraction
5/10
Al: Nice idea, rather too simple to have much lasting playability
5/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: Hacking eh? I had a cough like that once, the doc said lay off the cigars. Anyway, what are the best Fighting Fantasy books, gents?
Al: I think probably Harlot Of Miretop Fountain or Highland Of The Blizzard Ring, from what little I can remember. Though my memory has been refreshed slightly thanks to the excellent and hilarious Turn To 400 website. Starship Traveller and Freeway Fighter were quite novel novels in their own way but they weren't quite the same somehow.
Dave: FF books, eh - they're great, right? There are few I didn't like. I think (controversially) Warlock is my least favourite just because of that s0dding maze and the fact it's so easy to get to the end, yet miss the exact keys you need. Starship Traveller was a nice idea but like you, I found it a bit bizarre. I particularly liked Lizard King (now with extra dinosaurs!) for being completable even if you miss out on the odd item, and Scorpion Swamp as the choice of 'patrons' gives it some replay value (the evil 'Grimslade' route is a great alternative to being a goody two-shoes all the time). House Of Hell was quite a fun horror one, though I later discovered that if you roll a FEAR score that's too low at the start of the book, you can't actually complete it (harsh). Later on, Appointment with F.E.A.R. was an ace take on the comic book world, that saw you battling criminals with superpowers. My favourites were probably the Sorcery! series - it felt like an epic journey with four books in the collection, and the accompanying spellbook was pretty inspired. Not a chance in hell of completing the whole thing, but it didn't matter to young Dave! I've yet to play some of the later ones. Now where did I put my dice...
Al: Don’t rate ‘em then eh, Dave? :D
TO BE CONTINUED SOON...A MERE 14 LETTERS TO GO!
THE SWORD OF IANNA
Retroworks
2017
Yonks ago, The Lord Of Chaos, otherwise known as Julian Gollop, ruled the world. But it wasn't very good as everything was a bit too...chaotic really, nobody liked it much. Trying to catch a bus was murder. But as luck would have it, a passing goddess named Ianna had a fancy sword which could defeate ne'er-do-wells. So she gave this to (Tanita) Tukaram, who brought peace to the world while singing moody folk songs. But centuries later it's all gone teats up again, and as Tukaram's heir, it's up to you to restore order once more.
Our hero takes a wild slash. The mummy doesn't know where to look
A lever is pulled. Somewhere a door opens...
Got that? Fantastic. An intro tells you all this with some pretty pictures thrown in. All very nice. Then you're up, playing a highly hairy Conan type geezer. It's a cracking sprite, brilliantly animated as he runs and jumps around purposefully, beautiful Timotei hair flying in the wind, and he has a great sword swinging action in combat mode.
So there are two main elements to this game - the platforming and the fighting. It's a bit like Bruce Lee in that respect, and a relatively rare specimen. The combat is fairly varied too, with a number of moves available to our hirsute hero, both offensive and defensive. No Barbarianesque head lop though sadly, he's not that good.
Personally I lurve Julian Gollop games, so this sounds good to me, even if he is a bit 'nocuous'
You're rushing headlong into a mummy, an interesting tactic
You can also pick up health potions, though they're fairly few and far between, and you'll need them, as in this game YOLO. When you're hit a few times, you're history. Quite realistic then really.
There are switches to switch, chasms to jump and erm. Alright, I've run out of things to say again. I was hoping for a little more variety actually if I'm honest. That's the only thing Sword Of Ianna lacks, a bit more on the adventurous side. As far as I've got, it's been pretty platformy. Not quite the mix that Castlevania: Spectral Interlude offers for instance.
Isildur's heir, sorry Tukaram's heir, has bit the dust at the hands of a slicey skeleton
It's Ianna herself! She's excessively tall and skinny, with massive '80s leg-warmers on
But I have a feeling it must open up more later, so I can't let my own shortcomings cloud my judgement! I'm not very good at the fighty bits, that's the issue I think. Too much of a pacifist, or a coward maybe. Let me practise a bit more and I'll carry this on in a bit.
No, it's no good. I started off okay but now I don't seem to be able to fight my way out of a paper bag. I could beat the human dudes, but the mummies and skeletons seem beyond me. Think someone ramped up the difficulty level when I wasn't looking.
Hmmm. Okay, well I'll sum it up then. Graphics are brilliant, colour is ace and a suitably heroic and dour tune plays to great effect. It's clearly a cracking game and I'm clearly a doofus for getting so stuck in it. I did enjoy it as far as I got though, so will rate it generously and magnanimously in light of this. I'll come back when I've beefed up my muscles.
I got stuck on this one for ages. Waaaah, mummies!
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
I was just getting well into this before being rudely interrupted by running out of talent. I'm no hairy hero, but I'm sure you could be if you give this highly polished slice-'em-up a decent go of it.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
91%
SOPHIA II
Zanklesoft
2019
It's a shame really. At the end of Sophia I, as it wasn't called at the time, all seemed well. The evil wizard Doodah was bested and young Soph was triumphant. So the fact that there's a sequel suggests something must have fallen over thereafter, and quite seriously I fear. Why can't things just stay as they are, I ask you?
To be fair, if all was well, we wouldn't get another cool game, would we? We'd get Sophia Makes Herself A Sandwich Simulator, or Sophia Walks To The Shops Simulator, or Sophia Gets Bored And Has A Go Of ATV Simulator Simulator. Life would be dull.
Level 1. Sophia can't travel through those knights, this isn't Atic Atac
Level 2. Don't shoot at the red mine, it blows up. Like duh
So hurray for calamity! It appears that everything was indeed pretty peaceful and boring in the unpronouncable land of Xixarella, but thankfully things have perked up now, with a mysterious cult, led by a Mr. The Grim Reaper (not the real one, just a knock-off) threatening to take everything over. Sophia must dust off her black cat and cauldron, and defend her people once more.
De-makes are popular these days, aren't they? Games like Hallowed Knight, which come out of those ZX DEV affairs (like the Spandex compos, but less impressive), where a less complicated version of the original game is produced. But Sophia II might just be the first un-de-make ever, in that it's a massive enlargement of Matthew Smith's least classic game, Styx. Since that game had but one screen and this has got oodles.
If she can negotiate the snake and work her way round, Sophia will get the scrolls. I thank you
"Spiders. I hate spiders" as Indiana Jones frequently said
There are 3 distinct stages. Level 1 is the dungeons, where you must collect 4 ancient relics to gain access to a big bad boss, the Spider Queen. Level 2 is the underwater passage, where you must find and destroy 4 gold amulets, source of Mr. The Reaper's power, in a wet volcano. Do they exist?
Level 3 sees Soph battle through a tower filled with Da Reaper's war machines and finally confront the dude himself. I'm ashamed to report that I was unable to reach this bit, so in my version of this game, the Reaperman still reigns supreme, and Sophia is forever stuck in a watery hell. I feel a bit bad about that now. But what are you gonna do?
Level 3. Apologies for the blurry screenshot, I clearly failed to reach this level, so had to borrow it
The amulets on level 2 have to be chucked into this rather blocky volcano
And this is the problem with this game. It's really very difficult. Through frequent state saving, I got past the dungeons after a while, but the watery part has dampened my enthusiasm, suitably enough. Even save scumming can't get me through this time unfortunately, more's the pity.
I'm still highly impressed by Alessandro Grussu's expert use of AGD though. The graphics are nicely detailed, colour is plentiful and there are tunes everywhere you go. The level of presentation is top notch and everything seems in place.
I'm not quite enjoying it as much as Sophia's first adventure though. That game perhaps had a bit more depth to it, with the trading element for instance, and it seemed more playable. But nevertheless, this is still a very decent game in its own right, so more power to Mr. Grussu's elbow. And Sophia's too, she don't fear the Reaper.
Sophia meets Hunchback in this bonus level of the game which Alessandro later made. It's tricky - surprise!
THE VERDICT
More witchy wondrousness with this overmake (?) of the teeny tiny Styx. Give it a go and you'll soon Reap the benefits.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
88%
5 HOT OR NOT GAMES FROM TIMES OF YORE!
TRANTOR - THE LAST STORM TROOPER
Go!
1987
Macho sweat banded, flamethrower toting '80s glam-metal superstar Trantor is in a pickle. His people have betrayed him, the scum, and abandoned him on an alien planet. Maybe he just irritated them boasting about his luscious locks all the time, we just don't know.
So now in order to escape he must get to the planet's main computer. Every planet has one. He has to collect code letters from 8 terminals, then enter the codeword into the main security terminal. Then he can beam up out of there to go and massacre his treacherous countrymen on a revenge-fuelled killing spree. Good times!
Trantor's got something to say. It's better to burn out than fade away
That's a real nice spaceship. Shame it's made of sugar
There are lockers around to top up your tan, and your ammo and health, plus lots of annoying aliens to drain said health. Supposedly you have only 90 seconds to escape, but not really as your time resets each time you access a terminal.
First things first, and I well remember just how impressive this game appeared, even before you start playing. I think I had the demo on a YS covertape. There's an intro sequence, unusual in those days. Your huge spaceship slowly descends, then lands. Trantor gets out, then the ship dissolves, which has to make you ask questions of the build quality. Then the menu screen has some cracking muzak, which really adds to the drama.
So onto the game, and Mr. Trantor sure is a big chappy. His sprite is enormous, or that's what he tells the ladies, which is nice but it does make it rather hard to avoid aliens flying at you. The high-up ones are particularly annoying as I couldn't get at 'em at all. The T Man can't jump and shoot at once, and he only fires horizontally. And sure, you can duck them, but you can't roll forward or anything, so personally I can't see how you swat them at all.
Trantor tries in vain to shoot a high-up alien. Those bees are putting him off as well, poor chap
After ascending on a lift, Trantor meets the site caretaker Derek
Once you've got over these control limitations, a rather fun experience follows. You race between terminals, shoot the low-down aliens at least, go up and down lifts and generally have a ball. I didn't bother trying to remember the code letters from the terminals, as I didn't think I'd get far enough to make use of them. But then I got to what was possibly the end bit, and so I was stumped! I'd achieved 72% and the rating "Rambo is a wimp!" So maybe this game is a bit too easy...
A quick reminder of what the mags made of Trantor. As often happens, YS and SU went gaga for it, giving the highest possible scores. Crash decided on a very muted 68%. But interestingly, when it was re-released on budget 2 years later, SU gave it 67% and YS 7/10. Time must have been hard on it, I guess.
The T Man is invincible at this point. Look, there's a security terminal - take a letter, Mr. T!
Ooh, maybe this background was a mistake. More space clash than space trash
So who was right? In my humble opinion, I'd say none of 'em! I think for 1987 Trantor was quite an impressive game, a little limited in scope, but fun to have a quick go on, and with some great features. Get your headband on nice and tight, and let's rock, people! (Cue Bachman Turner Overdrive)
RATING 84%
VERDICT HOT!
5 HOT OR NOT GAMES
WITCH'S CAULDRON
Mikrogen
1985
"You open your eyes and find yourself in a dark, dingy cave. There's a flickering source of light which seems to be coming from just above your head. Faint gleams can be seen very high up, objects which may or may not be treasures. A strange repetitive melody can also be heard, or are you just going mad? You clearly are losing your mind as in front of you, you can just about make out a large yellow figure walking back and forth, which resembles a demented duck on legs. Suddenly you sense something terrifying. Your air is running out..."
Could this mousehole be home to Herbert, youngest of the Week clan?
The Week family's cat contemplates attempting some mad science, since the witch is away
Dramatic stuff! Nothing to do with Witch's Cauldron though surely? Well, my first impression of this game is that it looks a bit like Pyjamarama-The Adventure. Just the look of the graphics, cute colourful sprites which look like they've dropped in from...wherever the Week clan hung out. But this game isn't from the excellent Chris Hinsley, it's by Dale and Shelley McLoughlin, who went on to do the ill-fated Shadow Of The Unicorn. Wasn't their fault it was too big and bankrupted the company though, I'm sure!
So this is an adventure that looks completely unlike any other I can think of. When you move in a compass direction, the screen shifts left or right a bit, or moves to a new location. It's a weird way of adventuring, to be sure, but I rather like it as a change of pace from boring parsers or confusing icons.
Oh yeah, the plot. The amusing inlay starts with "Forsooth, thou art a bumpkin!" which is what I always say to my work colleagues (on muffled Zoom calls at least). You went and pi**ed off wicked witch Hazel and she turned you into a frog. Your task is to remetamorphose yourself back again. That's it.
Our amphibian protaganist fancies himself as a little pianist
I jumped off a ledge as a cat, but found only death on the beach. I thought cats were meant to land on their paws?
Adventures are illogical. We all know this. It's a bit of a lifesaver then, having a RZX playback to consult as I go. I started alright but then got my froggy form stuck in a mousetrap. The obvious solution? HELP of course, a command rarely ever helpful in any game. A mouse appears, asks you a riddle, then sets you free if you get it. Though the riddle does change every time just to annoy you that little bit more.
Then later on you learn that in order to turn yourself into a cat, it looks like you must say PUSSYCAT backwards. Try it and the game tells you "one good turn deserves another. And another. And another". After many failed attempts at solving this, the phrase it was looking for was "TURN TURN TURN TACYSSUP". Yeah, I wasn't getting that in a hurry.
But despite such irritations, it's hard to stay mad at this game. It's just so colourful and jolly, and really does seem to be pretty unique in the murky world of computerised questing.
Here's that HELPful mouse again. Hazel's assistant is called MOCTUPER by the way. Hmmm...
There's a Space Invaders minigame up that chimney. Nah, just kidding, not everyone's a Wally, y'know
Ah wait, here's another one before I go. "I woke up in a dark, dank dungeon, weary from my last adventure, but ready nonetheless to view my situation from a different perspective. I walked through an open door to find one, no two portcullises slowly rising and falling before me. After negotiating these, the adjoining room seemed to be home to a sluggish and expressionless guard who diligently walked back and forth like his mind was not his own. Just when I was starting to get my bearings, a horrifying thing occurred, terrible now to relate. My body suddenly went into agonising spasms and before long I found myself in lycanthropic form. Gadzooks! And just when I was in the middle of a tricky jump too, goddamnit!"
RATING 88%
VERDICT HOT!
5 HOT OR NOT GAMES
BLACK LAMP
Firebird
1988
Jolly Jack the jester (yes, another one) is on a mission. To return the enchanted lamps of Allegoria to King Maxim, as some dragons have stolen them and made the local yokels all miserable. He also fancies the King's maiden daughter, Princess Grizelda (beautiful name), though his majesty is not a fan of his, saying such a pairing would be 'virgin on the ridiculous'. Nice joke Firebird, like that one! But if Jack can reclaim the 9 lamps, even the king accepts he can have his jingly way with her.
Here's where you return the lamps to - a nice garish wall unit with 9 convenient niches
Jack gets some fresh air, but sadly a dragon is outside having a smoke break too
Jack has a few lives to spare and can emit bolts of magic from his belt buckle apparently. He can only carry one lamp at a time though, then he has to return it to a chest in the castle. There are different colours of lamp, but the titular black ones are protected by the dastardly dragons themselves.
Since this is a relatively unheralded Speccy game, let's see what the mags made of it for starters. SU loved it (9/10), YS liked it (7/10) and Crash didn't (57%). So it seems one of them must have been 'right', depending on your point of view. Let's delve deeper into the gameplay, eh? Seems only fair.
Even though you're doing them a favour, all the locals and their dogs hate you and attack you often. Ingrates!
Annoying witch flies past as Bub (or Bob) looks on in this moodily magenta room
It's a bit slow. Jack walks really rather sluggishly, which is a darn shame and gets things off to a shaky start. My advice is to jump across the screen to save time, but the game annoyingly insists that you walk off the edge of each screen, not jump. And for some bizarre reason he can't duck, so avoiding enemy fire is practically impossible. He's like Trantor in reverse.
There is good news too though. The game starts you in several different locations, so a nice bit of variety there. And the graphics are very nice indeed, albeit monochromatic. Also there's a great, almost piratey, 128k tune going all the while, though it does slow occasionally.
And now some random observations. Nice pictures of Bub and Bob around the castle! Quite cute dragons, not too hard to beat. Finally, surely there should be a point when exiting a screen that the baddies stop entering the screen at the same point and hitting you, but not in this game. Eat your heart out, Dynamite Dan 2!
Jack can jump on the barrels if he likes, but he does it so slowly, it's probably best to stay where he is
A witch cheerfully ruins this idyllic countrified setting
Presentation is generally top notch, with some nice effects on the menu screens. It's just the lack of speed in movement that ultimately does for Black Lamp, and prevents it from being a top game. As such, I'm siding with YS on this one.
RATING 78%
VERDICT NOT!
5 HOT OR NOT GAMES
MINDSTONE
The Edge
1986
You are Prince Kyle and your mom's a total bitch. Luckily you have a trusty/crusty band of warriors to hang with, namely Merel, Taina and Quin, though you have no idea which is which. Your quest is to find the Mindstone.
There's a really long mini-novel almost, explaining exactly why you are doing this, but who could be bothered reading that? I probably should, but it's really long, it's so unfair, harumph. I think someone just fancied having a go at doing some fantasy fiction, but fair play to them for the effort.
I managed to dig myself a secret passage here, but it led to precisely nowhere
We're kind of underneath the Elves Forest. Perspective can be a bit odd in Mindstone
Anyway you don't need it, it's simply a 'go find the thing, and back ye bring (it)' kind of affair. And so begins this tarted-up version of The Oracle's Cave. Well, that's what it reminded me of anyway, and not a bad game that was neither, I mean, either. I think.
You can choose between icon driven commands mode or 'remembering lots of keys' mode. I chose the former, seemed easier really. There are a mere 24 keys in total, so presumably a keyboard overlay might be needed if you go down that route. I'm sure I had one of those to (try to) play Flight Simulation, ah high technology!
Each location has some okayish graphics, though when your character actually manages to do something, like attack someone, the animation is rather primitive. And as usual with most adventures, most attempts to do something will result in an outcome to the effect of "You can't do that". Possibly the most annoying phrase in the English language.
There's something to dig here, but could I find or buy me a spade?
Gotta love the Sorcerer's crazy red gothic chandeliers
I managed to find some objects, buy some from traders, attack the odd animal, find a secret passage, all things I do every day of the week. But nothing to excite me much really, and frustration set in quite soon.
Crash loved this game, the be-parka'ed Derek Brewster, whose codename was Mat, giving it 89% and Ye Crashe Smashe. SU agreed with a 5 star verdict. YS however opted for 6/10, clearly getting a numpty adventurer like myself to review it.
I tend to find most icon-driven adventures on the Speccy, like the Wilson and Hogarth ones, leave you feeling a bit constricted, and somehow they end up being harder than those with a free input. And this seems no exception. I'd prefer more description generally too, everything is described rather blandly.
A rather unconvincing fight with an orc ensues
I couldn't even get into Iceland - this is worse than real life
I'll stop now as I'm boring myself with all this moaning about not liking or being terrible at adventures. I might steer clear of them for a while, leave it to more patient folk. Deal? Deal.
RATING 75%
VERDICT NOT!
5 HOT OR NOT GAMES
NORTH STAR
Gremlin Graphics
1988
In the year 2499, Earth was horrendously over-populated and under-fooded, so we built a space station to house thousands of people and grow us some more grub somehow. Scientists and equipment were sent up and the project was nearing completion when one day a flight left but never returned.
The powers-that-be decided to send you up there to check 5h1t out. To your horror you found the place overrun by aliens, who appear to have Destroyed All Humans and their life support systems, the cads. It's up to you, with your robotic implants (ooer) to clean the place up.
How cute is his li'l rocket? The sign seems to forbid take-off though. Natch
Excellent extending, but I fear this jump will not end well
Gremlin Graphics built themselves a decent reputation over time in the Spec-universe, with plenty of strong titles, and really very few duffers. They had an impressive in-house team which produced most of their stuff, with the likes of Steve Kerry and Jon O'Brien, who programmed this game.
So North Star is a left to right scroller and the only aim on most levels is to reach the rightmost point as intact as possible. You have to remove aliens from your path of course, and grab the odd power-up to keep yourself amused. I've reached level 4 and not found any very useful ones though, which is odd. They mostly seem to just boost your score. But apparently there's a smart bomb later on, unless the inlay is fibbing. Sadly I'm not smart enough to find it.
I expect to see Sly walk in any moment, pursued by a lunatic pram, and maybe even a hamburger
It's space pantomime time. "They're behind yooooouuuu!"
Getting around quickly in space isn't easy, and this game seems to reflect this fact. You kinda wish it didn't though. Your man's weapon extends and retracts efficiently enough (careful now) but when it comes to running, he builds up speed slowly, as though gravity and his troubles generally are weighing him down.
And jumping? Well you have to be uber careful if you want to do any of that malarkey, and you do often have to. Because your fella jumps high enough, but then takes a space age to return to earth again. By which time an alien has probably wandered into the screen, and you land on it and die. So don't go all Super Mario and think you'll bound around like crazy, crushing things. It'll only end in tears.
Alan Astronaut passes the space trash and confronts a press-stud alien, like in all good sci-fi B-movies
The bubbles are power-ups, which pop up in the yellow boxes below. Yeah, I've got none
Once you realise you have to look before you leap, progress can be made with some persistence. It feels a bit like Cobra in space, but the gravity does tend to bring you down. Ha, space jokes.
Which mags liked it then? Crash loved it the most, Smashing it at 90% while SU gave it 7 and YS 6 out of 10. Well, sorry guys, but you all got it wrong again, this is the epitome of a 8/10 game! It's good if you stick with it, has great colourful graphics, but is not without its occasional spacial frustrations.
RATING 83%
VERDICT HOT!
-FIN-
NOSY 128K
Javier Fopiani
2022
The first version of this game caused a bit of a stir in the pages of the new Crash mag. Maybe not earth shattering, it didn't make the 6.00 News, but it was still a bit kerfuffley and shenanegansish anyway. You see, Crash gave it a Smash and a 90% score. And some people didn't agree. That's it. Bit of an anti-climax I know, but us old guys' hearts probably can't take any more excitement than that these days.
Crash even hired a Reviews Editor because of this, to make sure they hadn't lost their marbles. Shame they didn't have one when they reviewed Technician Ted, but that was a long time ago, maybe I should let it go.
Better brush up on the old Latin on this intro part. You're only safe if you stick to the magenta bits
The intro and cut scenes feature some top digitised graphics
You are Nosy. I'm not being rude, it's the nickname of a young lad in an orphanage, and the star of this game. A powerful demon has spirited away the souls of all your mates there, but you are special. You have the ability to move between reality and the underwurlde. This sadly involves lots of getting knocked off platforms and trying to get back up by riding on bubbles.
You only get 7 seconds in the nether at a time though. Then when you return, you have to wait a further 7 seconds before you can go back again. Why? I dunno, I don't make the rules up for travelling to Hell and back, ask Elon Musk.
Some of your orphan mates' souls are stuck in the earthly realm (blue) and some are down under (red) and you have to tread carefully to avoid getting your soul drained in both. You have a cross to defend yourself in true Hammer Horror style, but it's a little tricky to wield and not as mighty as one would hope for. The Power of Christ doesn't compel much in this game.
Nosy manages to get outdoors but he still can't shake off the ghouls 'n' ghosts
Nosy must see off this spirit to save one of his pals' souls, then ponder if the green knife in the corner is really for him or not
With 50 souls to save, Nosy has quite the task ahead of him. Then he has to best the demon by choosing 2 specific objects to use against him from the many around the orphanage. The updated 128K version of the game has a lengthy playable introductory section, which is welcome as it eases you into the main game a bit more than in its original incarnation, and piles on the atmosphere. It's a major addition to the game, and very nice to see.
What's the most scary Speccy game before this one came along? And maybe Donum after this, but that's a case of style over substance I fear. I'd argue there haven't been any, apart maybe from the CRL horror adventures and the fun but silly Go To Hell and Soft And Cuddly. It's hard to conjure up a spooky ambience with just the 8 bits to hand. But this title is genuinely quite...unnerving, if not terrifying as such.
Your sister Clementine pops up unnervingly now and then to administer guidance
Be careful where you wander, you never quite know what you'll come across...
There's some great music on the cut scenes, plus some nice effects in the game proper. And the storyline is highly sinister and is told with a macabre relish that sets the whole thing up nicely. Even if the main game looks fairly primitive graphically. This however is quite an original use of the Mojon Twins' engine for a nice change.
It's not an easy game to master, and defeating the various ghosts can be a bit hit and miss, but that's Speccy games for you. No-one said it would be easy. But Nosy is a hellishly (geddit?) tricky game to play and may look nothing special at first glance, but Javier Fopiani has worked wonders here at creating something so psychologically disturbing and original.
*gulp*
MONSTER HIT!!!
THE VERDICT
A truly macabre tale, breaking new ground in Speccy suspense. Bela Lugosi would love it if he wasn't undead, undead, undead.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
90%
COCOA AND THE TIME MACHINE / 24 HOUR PARSLEY PEOPLE
COCOA AND THE TIME MACHINE
and
24 HOUR PARSLEY PEOPLE
Minilop Retroware
2020
I'm guessing that Bruce Groves is a rabbit fancier. Not that there's anything wrong with that. His company is called MiniLOP and his first two games featured a time-travelling bunny called Cocoa. Rabbits are cute, it's true, but keep it quiet. My wife's still traumatised by a recent encounter with a particularly vicious one called Murderbunny. Well, we call it that anyway.
Cocoa needs to get the dumb (wacky) waiter at the top left working to get any further
Undergound, overground, rabbiting free. Ever in search of some tasty parsley (bottom left)
Bunnies on the Spectrum have been fairly few and far between. Except for Rabbit Software, who released the earlier efforts by John Cain, he of the famous Booty (sorry, childish). And there was also Hareraiser, the notorious game which claimed you could win a golden hare, or £30k in cash (touch choice, that!) by completing it, when 'twas nought but a sham. Allegedly. Or so the Pi-Man says, since someone actually did find his golden sundial eventually.
So can Cocoa restore some dignity for the Spectrum bunny nation? Lettuce hope so! For how can one stand out above the crowd of platform games for our beloved machine these days? Well, for starters, make it bloomin' well. Full of colour, sound and preferably some original features. Easy peasy.
Bruce Groves later moved from side-on platforming to top-down classics like The Swarm Is Coming and Hakkenkast. Although I haven't actually played the latter just yet in fairness, but let's face it - it looks the biz. So how about his earlier efforts then?
Cocoa, meet Magic Knight. Magic Knight, please stop trying to kill Cocoa
The green archer pings arrows across the screen at you. Most off-putting
First, Cocoa And The Time Machine. Our floppy-eared protaganist has time travelled back to the year 1452, using up all the machine's fuel in the process. So he has to find more fuel, while munching parsley and collecting artefacts. Typical rabbit stuff.
This is a really smart little platformer, jam packed with great colourful sprites, excellent music and incorporating some distinctly Magic Knight elements, like characters asking you for bizarre items. Actually they are mostly knights, come to think of it, but everyone was in 1452! So it's a bit Monty Mole meets Spellbound, which is fine when it's done this well.
While in 24 Hour Parsley People, Cocoa has landed in 1899 in Colorado Springs, which is handy as it's home to legendary boffin Nikola Tesla, who can hopefully help Cocoa make a more powerful drive for the time machine and launch that bunny back to the present day, like Sam Beckett. It's like if HG Wells wrote Watership Down.
The red and yellow magnet can be moved along to pick up the blue crate, which proves very useful
Here's Nikola Tesla, and above Cocoa is the mighty deflector gun. It's raining meteorites outside
This game is possibly even more colourful and entertaining, with more new features. Such as weapons which deflect the enemies' bullets back in their direction, and big magnets which can be moved around to pick up and drop certain items of scenery. The Tesla storyline is a great idea, and makes one wonder if there might be any more future instalments to Cocoa's adventures, a la Marty McFly.
But how far can you take the platform game? Some recent examples, including these two, seem to have pushed the genre about as far as it can go. Maybe this rabbit's third adventure could take a different form? Rabbit Racer? Nah. Space Rabbit, Bounty Hunter? Probably not. But I for one am very interested to see which way the talented Mr. Groves turns next.
The little white guys throw purple bombs at you, cheeky scamps that they are
THE VERDICT
Two good fun games here, expertly produced. It's enough to make me mix-a me toasties. Okay, that's probably the worst one to date...
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATINGS
C.A.T.T.M. 87%
24H.P.P. 89%
OLD VS. NEW - WHO WILL WIN? Part 2 E-H
Part 2 - E - H
MATCH 5 (OLD 2 vs. NEW 2)
ENERGY WARRIOR (M.A.D.) 1987
vs.
ESCAPE FROM M.O.N.J.A.S. (Rastersoft) 2021
A flat-looking ship with Energy, but no Warrior oddly
Giant spiders mount their attack on the beaches of Stockport
By 2079 (that late?) the Earth has gone to spit. Hardly any people are around and most of it is uninhabitable. You are a reserve warden, responsible for 3 of the biggest areas of land still worth a dime. But argh, the star Cygnis Alpha has gone supernova, and the alieny Waverens are now "casting envious eyes" on our planet. So you must clear various regions of the alien menace. Including Stockport, that well-known area of outstanding natural beauty.
The aliens move quite nicely in their usual tight formations a la The Red Arrows, but they tend to mass at specific intervals, rather than coming towards you. This seems odd and kinda sucks the excitement out of the game. You can just sit there and nothing happens until you actively look for trouble yourself.
There's some epic scrolling here, mind. 4 layers all at differing speeds. It all looks good but ends up being rather dull. Nice tune on the intro screen, sadly none in the game. It's alright for a budget game I guess, but not exactly the stuff of legends. Let the aliens have Stockport.
Enemy cupcakes threaten the icy wastes of Gorton
It's dark in Hillgate. Aren't the flower and birdy pretty?
What the heck does M.O.N.J.A.S. stand for? 'My Onerous Ninja Just Ate Sausages' is my bet
Possibly one of the least likeable characters in gaming history
If you're lucky enough to be one of those young people I've heard about, you'll know what Among Us is. Some online game where you have to unmask an imposter on a spaceship before they kill every astronaut in sight. Its main charm seems to be its spaceman figures, minimalist but brightly coloured. Escape From M.O.N.J.A.S. borrows these cheekily as well as having its own spacey storyline.
You play Captain Pink ("Why do I have to be Mr. Pink?"), who harbours dreams of exciting space adventuring, but is instead stuck cleaning toilets on a decaying space station, and dealing with irritating and depressing colleagues. Phew, glad my life's not like that! He has to find a way to escape and live his best space life, like his hero Ace Rimmer (probably). He has some simple commands in his armoury in true point-and-click fashion.
This game has an original look to it, although this being space, sound is sparse. Big chunky colourful sprites fill the screen as you bounce your put-upon space dude jauntily around the ship, looking for your next mini-quest. It's all quite humorous and light-hearted, except for that 'yellow bastard' who's a loathsome bully. I really hope he gets shot out of the airlock before the end.
Red dutifully cooks chicken for tea. Nearby is situated a rubber chicken. Feel a swap coming on?
Being drunk and working with radioactive materials really is 'shaking hands with danger'
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: ENERGY WARRIOR
BEST COLOUR: ESCAPE FROM MONJAS
BEST SOUND: ENERGY WARRIOR
MOST PLAYABLE: ESCAPE FROM MONJAS
MOST ORIGINAL: ESCAPE FROM MONJAS
MOST ADDICTIVE: ESCAPE FROM MONJAS
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
ENERGY WARRIOR 2
ESCAPE FROM MONJAS 4
Escape From MONJAS wins!
MATCH 6 (OLD 2 vs. NEW 3)
FLUNKY (Piranha) 1987
vs.
FRANTIC PENGO (Gabriele Amore) 2021
Flunky regularly gets shot by bastard Beefeaters wielding laser-shooting sticks, a royal tradition
A bald Diana awaits in another room. Think the blonde thing with eyes might be for her...
You have the thankless task of being a servant at Buck House, and general lickspittle to one of the weirdest families since that Addams lot. However you have a cunning plan. You aim to get all the Royal Fam's autographs and sell the book on Ebay, making your fortune. Although Ebay wasn't that big in '87, so maybe you'll just have to try your luck at the car boot sale instead. Doing tasks set by the Royals is the only way to secure said autographs.
This was Don Priestley's third game featuring enormous sprites (Maziacs doesn't count) after Popeye and Trap Door, and it really split the crowd, a bit of a 'Hot or Not?' scenario. Crash and SU only gave it 60% scores but YS gave it the full Megagame treatment. It's certainly colourful and graphically impressive enough, but what of the gameplay?
Well I think it's great. I enjoyed Trap Door, but on reflection big ol' Berk was a bit tardy around the place and the game seemed a tad limited sometimes. But Flunky seems to be quite a speedy chap (wouldn't pay him not to be) and the game feels really open and enjoyable. The royal caricatures are great fun too, it's quite the '80s timepiece. Y'know, Fergie being allowed in the palace, Diana being...well, alive, and Andrew being naked in the bath. Ahem, to quote Paul Jenkinson, "let's move on"...
Does he need a bath if he can't sweat?
Flunky looks on suspiciously while Fergie laments the loss of her famous freckles
He hardly looks frantic, seems pretty chilled to me
The sprites are probably quite cute. Not that I can make them out much
Pengo was an early arcade game which spawned many a Spectral clone. But I don't think I've ever come across any myself. Although I've got Eskimo Eddie in mind now, but maybe that was another dream. Anyhoo, this is another one from Gabriele 'That's' Amore.
This one's got teeny tiny graphics, since it was authored using AGD Mini, which I've always thought was quite an odd idea, though there have been a few games which use it by now. Not too sure Don Priestley would approve. His idea of a 'small' sprite would probably fill half a screen.
But this is a fun little game, so long as you've remembered to wear your glasses or have a telescope to hand. The action is fast and yes, frantic, as you try to squish the meanies with your iceblocks to quite a challenging time limit. Later screens introduce new features to keep things fresh, and there's also a great tune thanks to Peter Pepper himself, Pedro Pimenta.
Think that's enough messing around with people's names now, I do apologise.
"You could earn a fortune by writing witty captions when Al can't think of anything to say. Apply within"
Nice self-portrait here. You can't destroy any baddies until you get that green cauldron. Obvious innit?
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: FLUNKY
BEST COLOUR: FLUNKY
BEST SOUND: FRANTIC PENGO
MOST PLAYABLE: FRANTIC PENGO
MOST ORIGINAL: FLUNKY
MOST ADDICTIVE: FLUNKY
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
FLUNKY 4
FRANTIC PENGO 2
Flunky wins!
MATCH 7 (OLD 3 vs. NEW 3)
GREGORY LOSES HIS CLOCK
(Mastertronic) 1989
vs.
GODKILLER 2: EXILE (APSIS) 2020
What a boring load screen. Couldn't Don have got some colour into it at least?
Ol' Greg has to do some plumbing here. Maybe an '80s moustache and red overalls might help?
Wha? How's this happened then? 2 Don Priestley titles in a row...what are the odds? To be fair, if Ghostbusters 2 had worked properly on my emulator, I'd be talking about that. But it didn't, so this one randomly came out next. Spooky stuff...
This was Mr. Priestley's last Spectrum offering, available at a budget price by that point. Reviews from the time suggest his games were a bit Marmite, so maybe we'd seen too many of them by 1989? However, with rose-tinted specs well and truly donned, he probably gets more plaudits nowadays for his extraordinary limitation defying graphics. And not bad games too.
A ghost has stolen Greg's clock while he was akip and scattered its five pieces around five different dream worlds. He must retrieve them, or he'll never wake up again. Harsh stuff, but there's so much colour and wild imagination on show here that you don't really mind. Gregory has great fun firing balls at baddies and bouncing around the place after eating jumping beans, amongst other novel ideas - he does his best to make his nightmares fun. More miraculous fare from Mr. P, he really was a Speccy one-off.
Do Gregorys dream of electric frogs?
That nightmare where a red monkey keeps lobbing his nuts at you
I don't know what's going on here but I freaking love it
"Beat Dis, beat Dis". Remember that song? Never mind. Collect that bubble like a good Godkiller, eh.
Ah good, I was patiently awaiting the second coming of Cthonian Godkiller after making the requisite sacrfices. Then I forgot about him for a bit, and now here he is again, thanks to being picked by my Randomometer. Or Excel formula. Funny how things work out innit?
There's the usual awesome inlay and pixel art, and a long involved storyline, which can be summarised in 6 words - escape from the city of Dis. Which was built on rock 'n' roll, or sausage rolls if you prefer. You look for keys to open doors, avoid monsters, fire limited ammo at locals, yadda yadda.
It's a Sabre Wulf type set-up rather than the platformy approach of his Harbinger games, which enables more freedom but is somehow less compelling. Graphics, colour and music are all very good, it's just the game seems a little Dullsville. An appearance from Cthulhu would liven things up, or a lot more gore and creepiness, which you would hope for from the Cthonian Godkiller. But it's a bit lacking here. Sorry, o great lord of the crawling darkness, I have failed thee...
We're at the top right, avoiding fireballs chucked by an unfriendly Dissian
If we could get this guy to team up with Clive Townsend, imagine the graphical wonders they could conjure up...
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: GREGORY
BEST COLOUR: GREGORY
BEST SOUND: GODKILLER 2
MOST PLAYABLE: GODKILLER 2
MOST ORIGINAL: GREGORY
MOST ADDICTIVE: GREGORY
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
GREGORY LOSES HIS CLOCK 4
GODKILLER 2: EXILE 2
Gregory Loses His Clock wins!
MATCH 8 (OLD 4 vs. NEW 3)
HARRY GOES HOME (Pulsonic) 1984
vs.
HOMEBREW (Jonathan Cauldwell) 2009
F. David Thorpe's earlier efforts weren't up to much
By stage 5 there are mines flippin' everywhere (see Moves figure). Harry thinks it might be easier just to move house
Remember when you were bored in work in the '90s? No working from home, no mobile phones yet. You had but 2 options on your primitive but massive PC - Solitaire or Minesweeper. I was a Solitaire guy myself and oddly have rarely played the Miney game.
Its origin is unknown before Microsoft popularised it later on. Maybe it was a cerebral arcade game for brainiacs with poor reactions, who knows? Quicksilva produced their own clone Mined-Out in '83 and a year later short-lived budget firm Pulsonic gave us this one.
It's as basic as BASIC can be, but is nevertheless of some historical interest I suppose. You guide stick man supreme Harry to his house via his front door key, which is randomly located on the way somewhere. Must have had a pint too many I would guess. And he must live in Beirut, judging by the number of deadly mines on his road. Despite itself, this is quite diverting for half an hour or so in fairness.
Harry's got the key. But has he got the secret?
Made it! If this was me, I'd never leave the house again. Bit like the last 3 years actually
If my homebrew experiences are anything to go by, this game may prove to be strong but largely unpalatable
Watch out mate, you've got a fly in your Blue Bols
What's the hardest Ultimate game? No, it's definitely Lunar Jetman. But in my book, Cookie isn't far behind. I think you either get it or you don't, but I've never been able to get past the second cake myself, which is pathetic. And I really like cakes too...
This game, with its clever title and all, appears to be un homage to those ACG folk's domestic science class classic. As such my first impression was one of dread. But as I played it nervously, it became apparent that this is a much friendlier game than Ultimate's effort. You, as a barrel unusually, have to fire...splinters perhaps...at flies, who then turn into fruit. Which you pick up and drop into your demijohn, John.
It's all a load of fruit, so hopefully the booze gets added at a later point, but otherwise it feels like you're making one of those lethal end-of-night zombie cocktails, using the dregs of anything going. Yeesh, memories. It's a fun jaunt though, quite addictive if a touch repetitive. It's bright and breezy but could use a booze themed soundtrack. Maybe Lily The Pink or almost anything by The Wurzels or Automata. And maybe the odd bit of screen blur now and then might add to the tipsy ambience. Nevrthelesh itsh a goodsh enjoyabubble ekshpeeriensh, and I for onnnne will drinksh to thathh...
Some hipster banana beer now I think. Watch out for the fishbone, on holiday from Cookie
"Here's your pint, mate, yeah?" Looks quite nice actually
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
BEST GRAPHICS: HOMEBREW
BEST COLOUR: HOMEBREW
BEST SOUND: HOMEBREW
MOST PLAYABLE: HARRY GOES HOME
MOST ORIGINAL: HOMEBREW
MOST ADDICTIVE: HOMEBREW
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
HARRY GOES HOME 1
HOMEBREW 5
Homebrew wins!
WELL, IT SEEMS THAT THINGS ARE STILL EVENLY BALANCED AT 4-4 BETWIXT THE OLD AND THE NEW - WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!
TO BE CONTINUED SHORTLY, SINCE 18 MORE LETTERS ARE STILL TO COME. SO ALL TO PLAY FOR...
RED RAID: THE TRILOGY
RED RAID: THE BEGINNING
RED RAID: THE SINKING
RED RAID: THE INFILTRATING
ZX Bitles
2020-21
This series of games has its own catchphrase - "Get ready for everything!" Well, that's quite a demand, I'm not sure I can manage that really. I'll give it a go though, they seem very insistent.
These games, as you might imagine and as the inlays proudly assert, "come from Russia with love". The titles will remind most Spectral oldsters of Raid Over Moscow, later renamed just Raid!, a game I bought since it got Crash Smashed, but which ultimately disappointed me when I failed time and again to get out of that frickin' aircraft hangar.
Redrick is at the top left, trying to shoot the red guy on the same level, but he keeps ducking
Rick has infiltrated the base but is now getting shot at. He should probably do what that sign above tells him
But these offerings are altogether different and are quite cunning puzzles with an ongoing storyline, each game being split into 2 parts with separate loads. You play the part of the strangely named Redrick. I presume all this talk of 'Red this' and 'Red that' isn't racist by the way, since the game was made by actual Russians. Let's hope not.
In the beginning was 'The Beginning'. Redrick is a new member, bless him, of the Mercenary Guild. Though what he's doing in Skyrim isn't entirely clear. His first mission is to raid the enemy base and retrieve his stolen bunny. Yep, bunny.
On each screen there are several enemies to avoid or subdue, either by kicking them to death or shooting them, also to death. There are blue balls to kick around into useful positions, which is odd but different. Part 2 sees Redrick penetrate the base (pardon) and continue nobbling bad guys, often using computer systems to open doors and stuff.
Redrick goes up top on the sub to do his impression of Doug McClure from 'The Land That Time Forgot'
Our hero embarks upon a 'sink the ships' minigame. Like Beach Head only not boring
Next, 'The Sinking' sees Redrick wake up in darkness on a submarine. He must find out what went so very wrong and flee the scene before he becomes Subsunk (any takers?)
This episode consists of, ahem, sub-quests our guy has to attend to, such as restoring power, sending out an SOS (like Sting) and rescuing your sub-mates from the stricken metal box. It's all rather fun as long as you've remembered your morse code. Part 2 sees a more combat based approach, as you deck baddies like Steven Seagal in Under Siege. But on a sub.
Then finally in 'The Infiltrating' Redrick has been infected by an alien and lands on Mars to capture a base there. Eh? Guess 'The Sinking' had a pretty whacked-out ending then. I didn't quite get that far...
You seem to spend most of your time as a little purple blob in this bit, using human bodies as hosts when needed. You get special abilities as you proceed, such as Brain Control and Mitosis (bless you). It's quite nice playing as the alien menace for a change, I'm a big fan of that. More puzzly fun awaits in time-honoured fashion.
Rick's got his dashes sorted from his dots, and can now escape in his funky hovercraftmobile
Right now we're the tiny magenta blob near the top, having 'John Hurt'ed out of the white guy lying down
Each game is subtly different from the others, but all feature similar puzzle-based action and highly addictive gameplay. The graphics are neat and tidy, plenty of colour, and each game features a decent ditty on its front screen. They've done a great job of dressing up a puzzle game as something more interesting, and creating a world with a progressing storyline. Apart from the bunny bit perhaps.
So in conclusion these three titles all have much to offer, with a great combination of strategic and arcade gameplay to enjoy. Looks like this series might run and run, so get yourself a slice of Red Dead Redemption. Whatever that actually means.
Brain Control to Major Tom. Take over the next white automaton
THE VERDICT
These games are way better than Raid Over Moscow, as they feature zero aircraft hangars. That may seem irrelevant, but it's very important to some people.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATINGS
THE BEGINNING 86%
THE SINKING 88%
THE INFILTRATING 87%
NINJAJAR!
Mojon Twins
2014
I think the title of this game must have lost something in translation. How can a jar be ninja-y? Some jam in a black glass container? Well if so, that certainly does warrant an exclamation mark. Fair play.
Ninjajar (top left), meet Ninjajar (bottom) who'll give you an extra life. The fish is unfriendly and will bite your bum
Our hero's going underground (going underground) to get some dynamite. Those blue creatures float around the place and hurt you plenty
This is apparently a homage (I do like using that word, sounds much nicer than 'rip-off') of Alex Kidd In Miracle World, which I'm told came out on the Sega Master System in 1986. Gosh, that's old - no wonder it resembles a Spectrum game itself. Who copied who then eh, Sega? Eh? Urgh, I see big scary lawyers coming my way, so I hereby retract my slanderous comments completely.
Ninjajar! is a rip-off of Alex Kidd In Miracle World. Which is fine, all's fair in love and retro gaming. The plot, as far as I can ascertain, is that Ninjajar (for it is he) has returned from a ninja sidequest back to his home village, only to find his girlfriend has been taken away by a monkey. Could be Tokimal, as this game reminds me of that one. So predictably enough he goes off to get her back.
Lovely stage map, but I don't fancy your Scrabble hand here much
On this stage we fall and fall and fall like Sabreman in Underwurlde. Annoying, but it gives the game some welcome variety
I've just got to mention something that happens very early on. You wander into your mate's house and notice there's a stacking hi-fi system there. Naturally you switch it on, and guess what you get? Rick Freaking Astley! The game's music changes to an actually quite good rendition of 'Never Gonna Give You Up' which you can't turn off till you reach the next level. Yep, you've been well and truly Rickrolled!
That's a great joke and is typical of the game's mischievous sense of humour. Not long after being Rickrolled, you find that you need an object from the God Of Thunder, but he wants something in return of course. You have nothing, so the lady in the local shop gives you her knickers to give him. And he...very much enjoys them, the sicko.
The scene of the crime. DON'T touch that dial! Ah, too late
As in every game ever, the swimming section is a total kick in the pollocks
There's a nice little tutorial stage to start with, with local lumberjack Mack providing timely exposition. He could have warned me about Rick Astley though...
These quirky moments are good fun, but in between them you find many levels of a more arcadey ilk, where no adventurey elements occur at all. The game doesn't quite seem to know which it wants to be, but it doesn't matter too much as it can perform both admirably.
The graphics are good, colour is plentiful and the AY music is great. It could be argued that I've played a few too many of this type of game recently, so I'm not quite as bowled over as I might otherwise be. But this is still highly decent fare which should prove enjoyable to anyone with a head.
It's raining and Ninjajar's route is blocked by rubble. Must be Monday
THE VERDICT
I suppose this is an arcade-adventure, since it alternates between the two in a rather odd way. But it's still loads of fun and quirky as hell. Personally I'm never gonna give it up.
THE ALL-IMPORTANT RATING
87%
OLD VS. NEW - WHO WILL WIN? Part 3 I-L
Part 3 - I - L
MATCH 9 (OLD 4 vs. NEW 4)
ICICLE WORKS (Statesoft) 1985
vs.
INVASION OF THE ZOMBIE MONSTERS (Relevo) 2010
This cheeky penguin goes down in history as the 2nd ever photobomber after the guy from Big Match Soccer (see part 1)
The picture on level 2 is a plane, or maybe he's unearthing actual crashed plane parts, I'm not sure
Statesoft only produced this game and one other, Bristles, for the Speccy. It's not entirely clear, but they must have had some involvement with spelunky classic Boulder Dash, as this game is such an obvious clone of it. Icicle Works as far as we know is nothing to do with '80s Scouse pop group Icicle Works though. Or Blaby's Icicle Works. That's enough saying Icicle Works now.
So, Icicle Works (aarggghh) is a slightly scruffy BD derivative. I couldn't locate an inlay sadly, but you play a guy who has to find the various pieces of a picture on a number of whitewashed Boulder Dash type levels. Sometimes there are lots of pieces, sometimes only a few. But there's always a time limit.
And boy is it tight! You might as well write off your first go on any level, as a recce is always needed first, so you can plan the quickest possible route through the puzzle pieces to the exit. No time for sight-seeing at all. It's fairly fun despite this, but then I'm a big fan of Rockford's exploits, and this clone may be considerably cooler. But it mostly makes me pine for the warmer fjords, okay caverns, of the original.
On level 4, polar bears and penguins appear and get in the way horrendously
Level 3 has water which gets everywhere. At least there are no bow-tie butterflies, they're a pain
A somewhat over-busy load screen this. and they forgot to put the game name on, doh!
Ned has left the forest area and now has to jump around, jump around, jump up, jump up and get down for his life
I was always hopeless at Ghosts 'N' Goblins, never got anywhere. Then later for some reason I bought Ghouls 'N' Ghosts and was hopeless at that too. Recently I tried Ultimate Ghosts 'N' Goblins on the PSP and eventually fought my way through to the end. Before getting stuck helplessly before a big door. I should have been collecting keys on the way, you see. Maybe oughta have read the instructions...
This game is the newest incarnation of that rock hard arcade classic. But is it any more forgiving? Your name is Ned and there you are, trying to get it on with your gal Linda in your convertible jalopy, when lightning strikes and a zombie demon appears and kidnaps her. You must defeat his 'orrible Zombie Nation and get her back.
This is good stuff alright! It's a colourful, noisy blast from the word go. But crucially it's easier to get along with than the other G'n'G games. Thankfully nobody takes you from behind in this one, which was a major, erm, pain in the ass in its predecessors. It's still hard though. It took me a while to sort out the first boss, but it's not unfair generally. And you get credits, just like arcade games of old. Overall it's ace, a Halloween winner.
The level 1 big boss hurls skulls at you and often tries to fondle you with his bony arm. Yick
The path of brainiac love rarely runs smoothly
BEST GRAPHICS: INVASION OTZM
BEST COLOUR: INVASION OTZM
BEST SOUND: INVASION OTZM
MOST PLAYABLE: INVASION OTZM
MOST ORIGINAL: ICICLE WORKS
MOST ADDICTIVE: INVASION OTZM
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
ICICLE WORKS 1
INVASION OF THE ZOMBIE MONSTERS 5
Invasion OTZM wins!
MATCH 10 (OLD 4 vs. NEW 5)
JOGGER (Severn) 1983
vs.
JOIN (RetroSouls) 2011
Spirograph strikes again. Poor Jogger's about to be given a mow-hican
Jogger's got a lot of work ahead of him if he's to Crossy this Road intact
Lawyers must have had a field day in the early days of the Spectrum, since every other game was, erm, inspired by an arcade original. This one probably just about evaded litigation thanks to its cunning title and overall lack of amphibians with wanderlust. Smooth move, Severn Software!
The most well-known version of Frogger on the Speccy was surely the insane road poor weird Horace had to cross to go skiing. This game is thankfully easier but with less reward. Your flickery man has to cross tarmac, grass and water in order to get home, you know the drill I'm sure. Strangely he can walk on the water, with no logs to jump on - he just has to make sure the passing ships don't run him down. When you get 4 joggers home, things get harder as an escapee from Advanced Lawnmower Simulator takes up residency in the central reservation. Succeed again and you'll have two of the blighters to contend with.
This ain't a bad clone, quite enjoyable for a bit, if rather primitive. The controls are a bit sticky, graphics a bit flicky and sound a bit...iffy. Nice psychedelic scrolling text at the bottom too, the show-offs! After a short while though, you'll probably be ready to jog on.
Handily Jogger does a great Jesus impression and can walk on water. No logs required
We've got 4 men home, so obviously the neighbour decides to mow his verge now. Noisy bugger
Even I managed to do the intro screen. Only lost 2 lives in the process too
Here's my top Robin Candy playing tip for this one: Get the bottom right heart LAST
One of the brilliant Denis Grachev's earlier efforts, this. I'll quote the inlay to you in its entirety: "Guide the magic ball through dangerous mazes to join the hearts. You need all the love you can get!" Ah, so that's why it's called Join. Possibly.
It's nice, simple but effective stuff. Bounce your smiley ball around the colourful levels, avoiding the tactically placed spikes. It's possibly a tad on the fast side on an emulator, but still eminently playable and maddeningly addictive.
The only thing missing is a nice, bouncy choon to keep you company on your mission. I suggest playing 'Bounce' by System Of A Down on repeat while chugging a Monster energy drink. "Pogo pogo pogo pogo pogo pogo pogo, bounce..."
More spikes than a Judas Priest tribute band
Smiley Spheroid has to go on a wild ride to complete this level in one piece
BEST GRAPHICS: JOIN
BEST COLOUR: JOGGER
BEST SOUND: JOGGER
MOST PLAYABLE: JOIN
MOST ORIGINAL: JOIN
MOST ADDICTIVE: JOIN
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
JOGGER 2
JOIN 4
Join wins!
MATCH 11 (OLD 4 vs. NEW 6)
KILLER RING (Reaktor) 1987
vs.
KNIGHTMARE ZX (Climacus/McNeil) 2012
The quality ain't oozing here. No load screen, then this menu calls the game 'K-Ring' oddly
Not sure why Killer Ring seems to feature aliens designed on a colour ZX81
Ariolasoft's snazzy new label Reaktor didn't produce many hits. Neither did Ariolasoft really, so maybe they just fancied re-inventing themselves like Madonna. Got to be worth a try, many software houses did it. My favourites were possibly Softek becoming The Edge (moody and pretentious) or Crystal Computing turning into Design Design (silly). Sometimes a change really is as good as a rest.
There is literally zero plot to this game and the authors gleefully celebrate this fact. The inlay says simply "Shoot everything" and then proceeds to give you an actual recipe for 'K-Ring Cupcakes'. Not sure the Reaktor crew were taking this games making malarkey very seriously...
Then begins a monochromatic vertical shooter notable only for its sheer unnoteworthiness. Waves of blocky aliens attack, killing you very frequently, and yes, hidden bullets often seal your fate in customary fashion. The star of the show is definitely Ben Daglish's super in-game music. Just a shame it didn't find a better home.
Any last words? You're about to become a K-Ring Cupcake
A change of colour occasionally is about as exciting as it gets
Quite nice, this. Though the Japanese at the top does look a bit like swearing at first glance
You're the horny guy facing upwards. Birds, balls and other horny knights are after you
"You're wasting valuable life force, team", "Spell casting D-I-S-M-I-S-S", "I am Granitas of legend", "You're in a rooooooooom". Remember that show? No, me neither and what's more, this game has nothing to do with it, so back off, Treguard!
Based on Konami's Knightmare, this title was made not for the arcade, but rather for the MSX. Whatever that was hoho! Popolon the knight must fight his way through 8 levels, from the Forbidden City (Norwich) to yer actual Underworld, to rescue his main squeeze Aphrodite, kidnapped by demons as per usual.
This seems like a more leisurely version of Commando. Or level 1 does at least, but things get proper frantic come stage 2, and the action hots up considerably. The graphics are cute, there are in-game tunes, end of level bosses and it's all good knightly fun. The only issue really is the lumpy scrolling. That aside, this is an enjoyable medieval twist on the Commando genre.
The witch from Cauldron is the end of level 1 big boss. Nice to see she's doing so well
Level 2 is red as you like, which adds to the alarmingly increased tempo
BEST GRAPHICS: KNIGHTMARE ZX
BEST COLOUR: KNIGHTMARE ZX
BEST SOUND: KILLER RING
MOST PLAYABLE: KNIGHTMARE ZX
MOST ORIGINAL: KNIGHTMARE ZX
MOST ADDICTIVE: KNIGHTMARE ZX
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
KILLER RING 1
KNIGHTMARE ZX 5
Knightmare ZX wins!
MATCH 12 (OLD 4 vs. NEW 7)
LES FLICS (P.S.S.) 1984
vs.
LEFT BEHIND (Dave Hughes) 2017
The intestines by the wall are actually the Pink Panther's tail
Unlike Mikie, there are no nudey ladies behind any of these doors. Or anything actually
Who's Les Flics? Sounds like a Northern comedian from the '80s. But no, apparently it's French slang for the police. Probably the equivalent of our 'the fuzz', 'the rozzers', 'the filth'. That kind of thing. Ah there's the doorbell, hang on a sec. Oh hello, officer...accompany you to the station...slanderous insults...beat me black and blue...right, okay. Let me get my coat.
Side-splitting slapstick routines aside, this is a game about every kid's fave Saturday evening cartoon character, the Pink Panther. Quite how P.S.S. got away with copying it, I'm not sure. The inlay is 'amusingly' written in 'Allo 'Allo policeman Franglais. You ploo the Ponk Pinther and you are licking to stool the Purple Puma, a poople gemstain, while avooding Inspector Cleudeau and his min. I can't deny I enjoyed writing that bit.
There's an overhead car bit where you scoot around avoiding Les Flics, then a platformy bit where you try to find the gem and not get grabbed by the fuzz (ouch). Neither is terribly interesting, though PP himself is quite cute. Terrible rendition of the theme tune by the way, though they probably had to make it sufficiently 'different' there again to avoid the lawyers.
PP can grab a sword and run a gendarme through, thus dramatically increasing his jail time when caught
PP's purple car is somewhat less impressive here than the one at the start of the cartoon. I loved that car...
Looks like Beethoven went into space and didn't like it
Go forth, astronaut Sam Gamgee, and assemble your space po-ta-toes
This one is based on the book and film The Martian which I've not had the pleasure of, but suffice to say it involves an abandoned astronaut (abandonaut?) trying to live life on his tod on an alien planet, Mars probably. And growing things using his own personal manure supply...Anyway, there's kind of an ongoing storyline from screen to screen here, which is nice.
Aha, a Manic Miner clone. I was all prepared to be bored by this, and moan on about the sheer volume of games of this type that come out nowadays. But that would have been unfair. So I'm glad I didn't. Skilful use of A.G.D. is a good thing, and if programmers can shoehorn in any new features, all the better.
I'm not sure there's anything new here as such, but what there is, is highly competent. Each screen provides enough of a challenge to keep your interest, and the generous option of 'infy lives' on the title screen is most welcome! It's challenging enough even so. So not ground breaking, but a good bit of fun anyway.
This game's full of cr...freeze dried excrement. But I like it
Refine those keys, deploy infy lives, then you're all ready to jugar!
BEST GRAPHICS: LEFT BEHIND
BEST COLOUR: LEFT BEHIND
BEST SOUND: LES FLICS
MOST PLAYABLE: LES FLICS
MOST ORIGINAL: LES FLICS
MOST ADDICTIVE: LEFT BEHIND
TO THE VIDEPRINTER!
LES FLICS 3
LEFT BEHIND 3
Left Behind wins on penalties!
"OLD GAMES, YOUR BOYS TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING! MAGGIE THATCHER!!! MAGGIE THATCHER!!!"
AHEM, SO THAT WAS A BIT ONE-SIDED, BUT THE NEWBIES SHOULDN'T GET TOO COCKY, KID - STILL 14 LETTERS TO GO...
Al 'n' Dave's A-Z of Speed Reviews - Part 4
Modern Era Games, part 4 - M to P
MAGE RAGE
Joesoft
2019
Seriously, how have I never played Halls Of The Things? That's almost as criminal as never playing Elite. Outrageous. As Mercure the mage you must recover some magical swirls (eh?) which were stolen that morning from Stone Circle while you were meditating. Pretty sloppy. Negotiate the creatures and traps within a creepy lair, then escape on your trusty steed.
Dave: Ah - an AGD Mini game I do believe? I think I prefer the 'mini' ones, you don't need big flash graphics to impress Mr. Dave, let me tell you that! Well, it seems to be easy to pick up, and some nice tunes play throughout. I thought my fire key was broken at first till I figured out you started out weaponless. Gandalf wouldn't have been this unprepared, no siree bob. Hmmm, avoiding the nasties is quite difficult. Glad to see your life/lives fully restored when you pick up a heart, rather than just incremented by one, as it's hard to avoid losing a bunch on any screen, especially when you run out of ammo. Is it amm? Maybe it's offensive spells, like ZAP and HOT (5 points if you get that reference, readers).
I admit I gave up on my second encounter of that maze-like section that just keeps sending you back to the same screen. Oh flip, I've just sneaked a peek at the map and there are quite a few of those sections. Maybe they should've called it 'Maze Rage'... "You are in a twisty maze of passages, all different"... "Al, help..! I'm regressing to my early text adventure days...!" "Xyzzy!" "Plugh!"...
Al: Get a hold of yourself, sir – sit down and we’ll sing about gold. Hey, this game is fun! I can only assume it's a lot like H.O.T.T. but even so, this is a new one on me. You have to find your 20 shurikens, aka magic swirls, shoot monsters with ammo you come across, find health top-ups, and trigger exits to your room by walking over various arrows. The graphics are teeny but it doesn't matter, and the pace is fast and frantic.
Any Good Then?
Dave: Not a bad game, but does anyone like a maze in a computer game?
6/10
Al: From the massive graphics of Krpat to this game's tiny ones. There's a place in the world for both.
7/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: So gents, what's your fave super-ancient arcade title, and its best Speccy conversion?
Al: I'll go for Scramble, loved the sit-down table they used to have for it, appealed to my laziness! I'd say Cavern Fighter is probably the best Speccy convo, they got pretty much everything right really apart from the flashy city.
Dave: Well I didn't really play that many super-old video games. OutRun with the sit-in cabinet was one that got my jaw dropping (thunk) at the time but it was so flamin' expensive for a youngling to play. Renegade was a good conversion from the arcade from what I remember, though I never properly played the original. Talking of beat 'em ups, I think I'm one of the few people who actually enjoyed Kung Fu Master on the Speccy. Most people seem to think it's a bit carp.
Pang was possibly my favourite arcade game - the Speccy version is decent but the collision detection isn't quite on point. So... All time fave? Errr... let's go for Bomb Jack, an ace game all round.
Al: Pong?
Dave: Pang
Al: Hang on, I think that's the doorbell.
NANAKO DESCENDS TO HELL
Ubhres
2009
This is another Mojon Twins game in disguise, and boy do those guys like the ladies! I've got quite a few of their risque loading screens on display in my emulator's game collection, which has inadvertently raised its rating from U to 18… Anyway Nanako has escaped from a scary castle in her first adventure, only to find her home village destroyed. The local Oracle, named Ceefax, tells her "Go to Hell", which seems rude, but is actually helpful, as there she can find four bits of ancient artefact to help her smite any enemy.
Dave: I did like the little intro cartoon, but I have to ask, what on earth's happened to the Oracle's head? I wasn't sure if it's an CENSORED or maybe a pair of CENSORED. Anyhoos, it looks like we've got a collect 'em up of sorts then, with a few objects needed to pass certain obstacles. Our bikini-clad heroine runs about the screens pretty quickly, but there doesn't seem to be much space to avoid things. Feels quite claustrophobic. I found it easier to just exit and re-enter a screen hoping that the nasty person wouldn't be there anymore. Though occasionally I'd lose a life straight away after entering a screen.
Al: This game looks and sounds good to begin with, nice in-game tune and pretty big chunky graphics. The trouble is they don't move at all well, the baddies being particularly poor, in that they aren't really animated at all, they just zap round in character squares. As time went on, I began to get into it a bit more though, chopping trees with axes and cutting gates with scissors (?), so it ain't bad for a bit I guess. If you’re not thoroughly distracted by the Giant Bikini’ed Woman on the right of the screen.
Any Good Then?
Dave: Nicely presented as you'd expect from the Mojons, and a cool tune, but I didn't really like it - it's just too hard to avoid the nasties.
5.5/10
Al: With a bit more polish this could have been a winner. As it is, it's a bit skimpy, like the eponymous heroine's outfit.
6.5/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: Who was the best dame, sorry, heroine in a Speccy game…bearing in mind there weren’t many in those days?
Al: How about Fred, female and professional on the cover, male and ugly in the game? I've never understood that one. And Mrs. Mopp was very...efficient. The only other one I can think of is Vixen, who could whip it, whip it real good!
Dave: Well, after considering, as one does, the bikini-clad heroines in slightly less interesting games (Vixen, Athena etc.) I'll pick Maria Whittaker (aka 'Princess Mariana') in Barbarian II as I enjoyed that game quite a lot. But I'll give the award (there is one, right?) to Thyra the Valkyrie (Gauntlet) for being the game's best character, with a perfect balance of weapons & magic. A shout out to Sevrina Maris from Shadowfire who was pretty badass, though I never got far in that game. And of course, the unnamed girl heroine in Ant Attack. And before you ask, no, Mrs. Mopp isn't going to feature.
Al: Mrs. Mopp was programmed by a laaaaaady, y’know, so it’s not as sexist as one might think.
Dave: I know, I met her son once. He said his mum really cleaned up with that game. Ouch, stop hitting me!
ON REFLECTION
Cheese Freak
2007
Author Lee Tonks advises that this game is one of those 'interactive fiction’ thingies, which usually means 'pretty darn short adventure’. In my experience, there's short and there's short. Fingers crossed it lasts longer than it takes for the kettle to boil. You’re a reporter on your way to visit your boffin buddy for an exclusive on his whacky new invention, when an explosion hits your car. Lo and behold, you find yourself trapped between reality and the shadow world (the Upside Down perhaps?) You must escape!
Dave: Now I do like a text adventure that's been designed by someone who wants their players to actually finish their game. It's a shame we didn't get many of these back in the ‘80s! This one's got a nice plot and I liked the dual-reality style puzzle mechanics as well, where you can do things in one time that affects the other. Reminded me a bit of Day Of The Tentacle. But with less comedy. And fewer tentacles. It’s easy to play, no issues with vocab, no need for a map, reasonable puzzles that are all solvable with a bit of thought, and the game is fairly easy to finish.
Al: So this seems like a bit of a supernatural affair then, which sounds intriguing. The bad news is it starts with one of those horrible vocabulary guessing games, a la Rigel’s Revenge or The Hulk. I had to look up the solution in the end after much frustration. But after this bad start, what follows seems to be quite an enjoyable, descriptive adventure which delivers something different to the usual goblins and dungeons. I may well come back to this one after we've got past Z…
Any Good Then?
Dave: This one's pretty cool and ticks all the boxes. Well done Mr. Tonks!
9/10
Al: On Reflection, this seems like a highly decent text adventure.
7.5/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: Simple question fellas. On Reflection, what was the best traditional style Spectrum adventure?
Dave: Having 'reflected', in this day and age, I reckon most of the famous ones seem unnecessarily bad to play. Yes, I'm talking about the Artic Adventures (urgh), the Scott Adams ones like Gremlins (nice graphics but not a great parser), and even The Hobbit (is it sacrilege to say that?) My favourite of the ‘80s lot is definitely Lords Of Time. It was the first one I played with decent puzzles, and a clever idea where you have different time slots you can visit. I was also pleasantly surprised by Mindshadow - that one was proper decent, had a nice story, can be solved and gives you a good amount of descriptive text. Though maybe it was just the thought of being stranded on an idyllic desert island...
Al: For me lieutenant, it’s easy, despite my learned colleague’s reservations. The Hobbit every day of the week. I loved it. Trouble is, it spoiled me for all other adventures. Damn you, Melbourne House! My esteemed co-reviewer’s own series of Quilled games about our school days, called Skool Rools (sadly lost in the sands of time) were rather good though, even though my character was murdered in one of them.
Dave: So you should be for going on about The Hobbit so much!
PARACHUTE
Miguetelo
2018
Ah this looks like a nice straightforward game. It's a remake of an old Atari game apparently. Hope it's not E.T. Written by Miguetelo and released over here by Bumfun (Jeez, not them again, change your name, will ya?) Your mission is simple - land on the ground in one piece. You can descend faster by burning fuel, since your chute is a fancy one, just try to avoid birdstrike and other obstacles. Sounds a doddle.
Dave: Do you remember the episode of that show, I forget what it’s called now, where the murderer was a clever pilot/parachutist who tried to make the murder look like an accidental plane crash? Johnny Cash was in it…gah, can’t remember its name at all…
Anyway, onto the game. Who'd have thought there'd be so many hazards for a simple parachute drop? Though I also wonder how many people actually utter the word 'Ouch' when their parachute fails and they plummet to the ground. I had a look at the Atari version this game is loosely based on - cripes, my poor lug 'oles, what a tune! Fortunately, the Speccy version has some banging music to accompany your plummeting. A couple of nice design touches in this one - it's good that you can move your parachutist upwards, otherwise it'd be rock 'ard. And I'm thankful that the rising balloons stop when you get near the bottom of the screen - avoids some very unfair potential deaths.
Al: Nice simple game, this. Or simple at least until you get stuck fast on level 9 (appropriately) like wot I have. It's quite the strategic dilemma when to use your limited boost and when to freefall in safety, but as the levels go by, breathing space becomes harder to find. There's great varied music which makes a world of difference too.
Any Good Then?
Dave: Simple but playable. I managed to get to level 21, but things were just a bit too tight on the screen, and I had to admit defeat.
7/10
Al: A simple idea very well executed. Hang on, level 21? Gulp…
7.5/10
Just One More Thing...
Columbo: A parachute is one way to fly...kinda. But what were the best Speccy games in which you flew?
Dave: Crikey, this might need narrowing down a bit! Well if you consider shmups there were a gazillion for the Speccy. A game I've mentioned before is Elite, the best fly-y game I've played. Followed by the best Speccy scramble game, Penetrator (stop sniggering). And my bronze medal goes to T.L.L., a jolly good fun arcade game involving a plane. I preferred it over the slightly sluggish Cyclone. Close 4th place goes to Thrust, one of the few games where battling with the controls is somehow more fun than frustrating.
Al: Flight sims bored the pants off me, but I enjoyed ATF. If we're talking helicopters, Krakatoa was quite fun, rescuing those poor lava-covered saps. And flying in space? Let's go obscure and pick Buggy Blast, for its trench-travelling tension.
Dave: I still can't remember the name of that TV show, it's annoying me now.
Al: Columbo?
Columbo: Nah, I've got no idea guys. Maybe Perry Mason, I dunno.
Dave: Phew, I guess that leaves the fourth wall thankfully intact.
Al: Whatcha talking about? Lieutenant, I think we need a brief rest from your relentless questioning, things are starting to get weird.
Columbo: Okay schmucks, I'll let you take a load off for now. I've only got ten more of my questions to ask ya. My boss insists that I ask all suspects exactly 26 questions, I've no idea why. He's an odd one, I know that much. Come on Dog, let's let you go do your business then we'll resume in ten.
That's some good scrolling you did there. Part 4 be no more!